Huawei wins second major UFB contract

China’s Huawei has won its second major contract under the New Zealand government’s ultrafast broadband (UFB) network rollout programme, reports ChinaDaily. Enable Networks, owned by the city council of Christchurch, has chosen Huawei to supply, operate and maintain the city’s UFB open-access fibre-optic broadband network, under a ‘multi-million-dollar’ contract. The planned 3,500km UFB network will cover Christchurch and neighbouring Waimakariri and Selwyn districts, passing 180,000 homes, schools and businesses, and is seen as essential for New Zealand’s second city’s reconstruction after a series of earthquakes. Huawei won a similar contract late last year to build the UFB network in the Hamilton-Central North Island region. The UFB rollout programme will be completed over an eight-year period, with the aim of seeing 75% of New Zealanders able to access speeds of 100Mbps or more before 2020 at a projected cost of NZD1.5 billion (USD1.25 billion).