industry telecommunications founded 2001 headquarters melbourne owner ontario teachers pension plan leighton holdings website http www.nextgengroup.com.au nextgen networks pit nextgen networks is an australian communications company which is owned by ontario teachers pension plan 70 % and leighton holdings 30 % one of australia s major companies . nextgen s network is based on a geographically protected national network with the brisbane to melbourne link utilising self healing sdh two fibre ring architecture . the ring system covers brisbane sydney canberra and melbourne and a flat ring link through to adelaide and perth as well as covering 70 major and regional population centres along the route . the network covers a total of 8 500 km . contents 1 history 2 the building of the network 3 nextgen group timeline 4 references history edit the network was constructed in 2002 and cost around 850 million to construct as a joint venture of leighton contractors 140m and macquarie bank using state of the art equipment from suppliers such as lucent and financed by a consortium including leighton holdings macquarie bank national australia bank deutsche bank ubs capital and westlb . visionstream another subsidiary of leightons constructed the network consisting of four network loops each with 12 fibre pairs with each fibre pair capable of 800gbit s. the network owners intention was to provide the highest network quality which led to the use of using many state of the art technologies at the time . lucent supplied the truewave rs g655 fibre developed by bell labs to provide high bandwidth capacity and specially designed for long distance dwdm optical cables . being a non zero dispersion shifted fibre it has minimum light dispersion allowing signals to travel long distances with enough dispersion to prevent crosstalk from adjacent signals . it was built to australian conditions to prevent against not only rodents but wombats christmas tree roots and erosion from black soil . 1 lucent also supplied newest technology wavestar ols 400g dwdm systems and wavestar bandwidth manager . nettest s questfiber technology supplied the remote fibre test system the largest network of its type in the australia pacific region within the nextgen networks dwdm network . this gives the benefit of a fully managed network backbone with minimal downtime when a fault is detected the location is known to within a few metres as well as showing the health of the cables and its segments allowing for preemptive maintenance where cable is showing signs of distress . 2 the building of the network edit visionstream commenced building of the network on 15 june 2001 with the first soil being turned and commencement of laying the fibre 40 km west of young new south wales at milvale after many months of project management planning which included sourcing of materials negotiating access along the route that the cable and equipment will travel environmental management and working with indigenous leaders to fully gps map sensitive areas to avoid damage . the project was brought in ahead of schedule in may 2003 construction was handed over from visionstream to nextgen networks in four main stages occurring at the following dates . stage location handover date stage 1 melbourne sydney loop 30 september 2002 stage 2 sydney brisbane loop 20 january 2003 stage 3 melbourne adelaide 7 december 2002 stage 4 adelaide perth 15 may 2003 activities included route construction urban works cultural heritage walkouts and the construction of primary nodes in each capital city on the route the primary nodes serve as the prime point of interconnection in the network by which customers will access their services . 3 during 2002 trouble hit the consortium of nextgen networks and although the network was solid the traffic and sales needed to support the financing unfortunately did not eventuate during the twelve month price war competition bit hard on nextgen and the other intercity cable providers with the price of backhaul between australian cities dropping by 70 % leaving nextgen without the funds it needed to repay the debt . this situation was repeated right around the world with many similar owners of fibre optic cables also in financial difficulty and here in australia with another major fibre optic cable player amcom backed ip1 australia who built cable networks from melbourne through to perth going into receivership and bought at a fire sale price of 45m about a quarter of its construction cost of 160m by telstra . also during this period a multi terabit international cable nava 1 was shelved . on 23 june 2003 administrators were called in by the national australia bank . 4 assured of significant financial commitment by aarnet to utilize the network 5 on 24 december 2003 leighton holdings acquired nextgen networks 6 for a total between 20m and 30m with the banking syndicate having a share in the company s growth for the next 10 years . citation needed nextgen became a full subsidiary of leighton holdings and is therefore now debt free . nextgen group timeline edit 15 june 2001 nextgen s network construction begins from brisbane to perth 2002 metronode s first data centre becomes operational in west melbourne 15 may 2003 nextgen completes construction from brisbane to perth 24 december 2003 leightons acquires nextgen networks 2006 the infoplex cloud business is established 8 march 2006 nextgen launched australia s first virtual private lan service . 7 8 30 june 2006 senetas and nextgen launched layer 2 ethernet vpn which features encrypted security 9 2 june 2008 nextgen announced the acquisition of rival carrier silk telecom . 10 2009 peter mcgrath becomes managing director 2 july 2009 premier media group awards nextgen networks as provider for high capacity links to major sporting venues december 2009 nextgen networks wins nbn 0m regional backbone blackspot program rbbp october 2010 nextgen delivers australian first 100gb fibre optic network november 2010 nextgen wins high capacity transmission contract for vodafone 10 may 2011 asc announces australia to singapore cable project to build own and operate 4 800 km multi terabit submarine cable system . october 2011 nextgen delivers rbbp project for nbn 2012 australia to singapore cable system project build begins august 2012 metronode completes industry leading pue data centre facility june 2013 leighton holdings sold nextgen to a joint venture owned by ontario teachers s pension plan 70 % and leighton holdings 30 % for 885 million dollars . 11 july 2013 nextgen group holdings pty ltd formed legacy nextgen networks metronode and infoplex business go to market under single brand nextgen group 9 august 2013 metronode launches nsw government next generation data centre references edit wombat proof nextgen cable touches down network monitoring visionstreams release on building of the network notice of administration korporaal glenda 2009 . aarnet 20 years of the internet in australia 1989 2009 pdf . aarnet . p. 78 . isbn 978 0 646 52111 4 . retrieved 2013 11 02 . nextgen group history . retrieved 2 november 2013 . introduction of vpls introduction of vpls senetas and nextgen launch of encryption service silk nextgen confirm deal . leighton finalises sale of telco assets . business spectator . 28 june 2013 . v t e internet service providers of australia economy of australia internet censorship current ausbbs amcom bigair connexus internet dreamtilt devoted nbn exetel m2 group clubtelco dodo services eftel iprimus nbnsp optus virgin broadband origin net skymesh telstra bigpond pacnet tpg telecom adam internet iinet internode westnet vodafone zettanet wholesale nbn tpg telecom aapt limited agile communications chime communications pipe networks nextgen networks origin net telstra wholesale former chariot connect.com.au grapevine neighbourhood cable netspace opel networks ozemail pacific internet pegasus networks people telecom related topics internet in australia national broadband network retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title nextgen networks & oldid 739363234 categories telecommunications companies of australiacompanies established in 2001hidden categories use dmy dates from march 2011all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from october 2013 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 14 september 2016 at 07 14 . text is available under the creative commons attribution 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