Improving Northland's fibre service

Northpower Fibre has made significant strides to enhance the sustainability and reliability of its fibre network, with a strong focus on reducing outage times, supporting priority services, and futureproofing for the long term.

One of the key improvements was the significant upgrade and reconfiguration of two fibre loops using an Ethernet Ring Protection System (ERPS). The Dargaville loop was completed in March 2026, and the One Tree Point loop was completed in January 2026.

Future-proofing critical connections

The ERPS offers our customers 10 times more capacity – from 10GB to 100GB making the network capacity future proof for more up and download activity on the internet. ERPS rings, ensure that if one fibre path is disrupted, another can be switched on to take over and make the impacted network operational, which will significantly reduce the outage time.

This upgrade was put into sharp focus when a cable strike on State Highway 14 caused a major outage in Dargaville. Thanks to the new ERPS structures, this enables areas like Dargaville, Ruawai, Paparoa, Maungaturoto, One Tree Point and Ruakaka to be fed from two directions, significantly reducing potential downtime.

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