To meet surging bandwidth connectivity demands in New Zealand, renewable electricity generator and multi-product utility retailer Mercury is using the fibre communications network from One New Zealand (One NZ) to improve the scalability and resiliency of its services.
Supplying electricity, gas, broadband and mobile to homes and businesses, Mercury said that its fundamental aim is to help move Aotearoa New Zealand to a low-emissions future through generating electricity from 100% renewable sources – hydro, geothermal and wind.
In 2022, Mercury Energy acquired the retail business of rival Trustpower. Since then, the company has been building out its broadband capabilities as a key growth opportunity. According to its latest interim report, the company’s broadband market share surpassed 10% of the fixed line market in New Zealand, and it now boasts more than 30,000 mobile customers.
One NZ has served as Mercury’s backhaul provider since 2016, providing high-quality, reliable and resilient wholesale fibre services. With multiple 100 Gbps services across New Zealand, One NZ’s backhaul fibre services is designed to help connect Mercury’s customers to key global internet points and reduce outage incidents.
To support Mercury’s growing bandwidth demands and take the customer experience to the next level, One NZ upgraded Mercury’s network to support 400G communications between cities of Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga. The upgrade is designed to enable Mercury engineers to focus on driving growth and customer service rather than on resolving network issues.
To enable Mercury to scale its network to accommodate new broadband customer growth and bandwidth requirements, One NZ has deployed Ciena’s 6500 range of packet-optical platforms powered by 800 Gbps WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) programmable coherent technology. Ciena’s WL5e is also deployed in order to improve optical network performance and optimise power utilisation.
As part of a strategy to help Mercury meet its mission of moving New Zealand to a low emissions future, WL5e transponders with 400GE client interfaces are offered in the same physical footprint as previous generation transponders with 100GE client interfaces.
“This network, provided by One NZ and enabled by Ciena technology, allows our engineers to spend more time pursuing new avenues of growth, such as adding new customers and creating innovative service offerings, rather than resolving network issues,” said Michael Stevenson, ISP team leader at Mercury.
Murray Osborne, general manager of infrastructure partners at One NZ, added: “One NZ has a long history collaborating with Ciena on high-speed internet solutions and we’re pleased to support Mercury in its growth ambitions. Connectivity is an essential service and a lifeline for many, so reliability is incredibly important. We are implementing world-class solutions with Ciena’s leading coherent optical technology.”
The deployment at Mercury is the latest in projects Ciena has been involved with in the Australian region. Just under a year ago, the company announced that it was working with operator Digicel Fiji and cable network provider Southern Cross for the second year running to provide schools in Fiji with high-speed internet access of at least 10 Mbps via the Digicel Fiji network. This was part of the Project Semata initiative designed to provide high-speed internet access and online learning resources to three schools in Savusavu, Fiji.
