Lucas saw a need in the Australian market for a fast, cost-effective system for installing small-diameter linear infrastructure. In particular, the optical fibre cables for the proposed National Broadband Network. They searched the world for the best available technology and found it with the patented systems developed by Groupe Marais in France, already well-proven in Europe and around the world.

The result was Marais-Lucas Technologies Pty Ltd, a joint venture between Lucas Group and French engineering firm Groupe Marais SA.

Marais-Lucas has brought a $1.2 million Cleanfast fibre installation machine (below) to Australia – the first in the Asia Pacific.

It had its public debut at the Fibre to the Home Conference in Melbourne in May 2009, and was officially launched by Senator the Hon. Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

Its first live project was the beginning of the Federal Government's National Broadband Network in Tasmania.

For full details of Cleanfast, please download the brochure here. A video showing Cleanfast in action is available on the Marais site, here.

About Marais

Marais was founded in 1962 in France, and has worked consistently since then to develop installation technologies to speed up and simplify the installation of various kinds of conduits.
Over the years since, the company has refined a variety of systems to install conduits in different environments: narrow village streets, railway rights of way, motorways, rural and urban roads. Their unique solutions are protected by 25 patents.

In the last decade the company’s machines have installed over 40,000 km of networks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America.