Companies vie for piece of Ultra-Fast Broadband pie

Telecom and at least 19 other New Zealand fibre companies have today submitted their ultra fast broadband rollout proposals to Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH).

Next week CFH will begin the painstaking process of selecting which companies are best suited to partner the government in rolling out Ultra-Fast Broadband (100Mbit/s) to 75% of New Zealand homes by 2018. The government has promised to invest $1.5 billion in the rollout to reduce the risk to chosen partners.

Although all of the submissions are confidential, some details have been revealed in statements sent to media today by the potential broadband rollout partners.

For instance, Vector’s submission for providing fibre to the Auckland region proposes using layer 2 lit fibre instead of dark fibre. The government has stated that its preference is for open access to dark fibre (layer 1), as it would allow end users, such as ISP’s, to purchase and utilise bandwidth and utilise it in any way they please.

Vector said it could rollout ultra-fast broadband to all premises in the Auckland region within seven years – faster than the government’s 10 year timeframe.

A media release from New Zealand Regional Fibre Group, a consortium of 19 fibre companies including Vector, said its members could rollout ultra-fast broadband to 80% of New Zealand homes, which exceeded the government’s 75% coverage goal.

Telecom’s submission included an alternative rollout plan that proposed using Telecom’s existing national fibre-to-the-node programme as a “springboard” for realising the government’s vision of providing fibre-to-the-home.

CEO Paul Reynolds said that by partnering with Telecom and establishing a nationwide network, instead of multiple Local Broadband Companies, the government could save money.

“It makes the maximum use of the fibre already in the ground, assures high quality, and guaranteed delivery, and the absolute minimum of waste.

“Also, a national approach ensures individual regions benefit from a consistently engineered and interconnected network. Quality and flexibility are at the core of the network we propose to build.”

Telecom spokesperson Mark Watts said the company’s 400-page submission was “incredibly detailed”, and he expected the selection process to be “lengthy”.

A CFH spokesperson said she did not know how long the selection process would take, but more information on timelines and the number of submissions received would be available next week.