Source: ITnews (Gallery - Here)
Engineers from French and Australian joint venture Marais-Lucas Technology have begun cutting up a thin trench across the Tasmanian landscape north of Hobart for the first fibre cable of the National Broadband Network to be laid.

The trench, being built over a seven kilometre path between the Aurora Energy data centre in Cambridge and the coastal town of Midway Point, is being dug by a $1.2 million Mercedes Benz truck fitted with a massive serrated cutting wheel, a vacuum and other trench-building smarts.

Just over one kilometre has been dug so far after one and a half days of work.

The 12-metre long, 23-tonne Cleanfast truck was imported by Marais-Lucas Technology, which was contracted alongside John Holland Group by Nu Energy, a subcontactor of Aurora Energy.

Built from scratch, the Cleanfast is based on similar models used for Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH) rollouts in Europe, only with right hand drive (steering wheel) and an extra two wheels. (Australian standards have set lower maximum axle loads, meaning the machine requires eight wheels for use in Australia as opposed to six in Europe).

The wheel-shaped cutting tool connected to the truck is capable of cutting 600 metres of shallow trenches per day, while simultaneously sucking the spoil (dirt) out of the trench using an industrial-strength vacuum.