A substantial chunk of fiber is changing hands down under. Vocus Communications has announced plans to acquire Netgen Networks in a deal worth about $500 million.
Nextgen had built a 17,000km fiber backbone across Australia with fiber into 1,100 buildings including 70 data centers.
They were also a 50% owner with Vocus on the ACS project building a subsea cable between Perth, Singapore, and Indonesia, which Vocus will take 100% possession of. And they were building the North West Cable system between Darwin and Port Hedland to the oil, gas, and mining industries as well, which will also be bought by Vocus.
The deal, which follows their recent purchase of M2, will see Vocus add substantial infrastructure muscle in an effort to better compete with Telstra, Optus, and TPG.
Vocus already has some 700km of fiber hooking up 1,300 buildings in Australia, as well as a more extensive 4,200km of fiber over in New Zealand.