Waterman was appointed as a national engineering services consultant for the development of the National Broadband Network (NBN) infrastructure.
The rollout of the NBN represented a significant leap in the communications capabilities available to most Australians. The NBN involves the laying of fibre optic cabling to 93 per cent of Australian homes, schools and businesses, providing broadband speeds of up to a gigabit per second.
Our team provided a range of services in support of this major scheme. This saw our specialists carrying out:
• Underground field surveys to inspect existing cableways, trenches and pits to determine fill ratios, condition and surrounding environmental contributing factors that may affect design.
• Aerial field surveys to inspect energy authority electrical pole infrastructure, measure conductor heights, assess pole condition and locations and measure spans.
• Fibre designs to verify NBN-Co preliminary designs against actual field-surveyed infrastructure and modify the designs to suit using SpatialNet, a cloud-based CAD software.
• Aerial designs for aerial fibre routes which involves specialist knowledge of clearances to electrical conductors, attachment types and heights, alterations to existing infrastructure, sag of cables under difference temperatures, spans and replacement and adding of poles where required to supply authority and NBN Co standards.
