Established in 2004, VERNet Pty Ltd designed, built and manages the Victorian Education and Research Network (VERN): a carrier-grade fibre optic backbone spanning approximately 3,000 km across metropolitan and regional Victoria.

The VERN connects more than 300 customer sites and serves over 500,000 students, staff, researchers, scientists and clinical personnel. Customers include all eight Victorian universities, TAFEs, K-12 schools, major hospitals including Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Alfred and Footscray Hospital, research institutes such as the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and community organisations.

Codecom supplies VERNet with fibre connectivity and structured cabling products engineered for high-performance telecommunications infrastructure from optical transceivers to CWDM panels, OADM cassettes and custom fibre assemblies.

Challenges

VERNet is midway through a major network refresh targeting completion in 2027, replacing the fibre backbone across hundreds of live sites, including hospitals running Electronic Medical Records and universities delivering online learning.

• Scaling xWDM wavelength capacity across a dark fibre core without full infrastructure rebuilds, particularly in regional areas where fibre pairs are limited
• Maintaining near-zero downtime across more than 20 hospital and health sites with strict reliability requirements
• Managing structured cabling across 300+ sites with a lean team of approximately 17 staff, requiring modular, tool-less systems that reduce installation time and operational risk
• Maximising fibre termination density in limited rack space across university comms rooms and colocation facilities

“We have partnered with Codecom for over a decade, and they remain one of our most trusted and dependable suppliers. From patch leads and optics to passive WDM equipment and termination panels, Codecom consistently delivers products and solutions that meet our needs with exceptional quality and reliability. Their team is friendly, knowledgeable, and always willing to go the extra mile to support us. What we value most is their responsiveness and willingness to tackle requirements that fall outside the ordinary. Whether we’re facing a unique technical challenge or simply need fast turnaround, Codecom approaches every request with innovative thinking, well‑engineered solutions, and fair pricing. We know we can count on them, and they continue to be an outstanding partner to our business.”James Morgan, Technical Manager, VERNet

Solutions

Codecom engineered a matched suite of products to support VERNet’s network refresh and ongoing operations:

• Optical transceivers: CWDM and DWDM wavelength-specific options in hot-swappable SFP/SFP+/QSFP form factors for rapid provisioning across metro and regional spans
• Custom fibre patch leads: low insertion loss LC, SC and MTP/MPO configurations in site-specific lengths, with polarity-reversible Quick Release connectors to simplify moves, adds and changes
• CWDM panels: passive wavelength multiplexing enabling multiple independent channels over a single fibre pair, scalable as bandwidth demands grow
• OADM cassettes in LGX panels: tool-less, passive add/drop multiplexing allowing wavelengths to be added or dropped at intermediate sites without disturbing other channels or requiring dedicated fibre pairs