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Ultra-fast broadband soon

Published on April 7^th 2009, 5:00am

Whangarei is one of 25 towns and cities in New Zealand to benefit from the government’s commitment to ultra-fast broadband.

It plans to set up a Crown-owned fibre investment company to invest in companies which deliver fibre optics - reaching 75 percent of the population over 10 years.

The government is committing up to $1.5 billion and expects it to be at least matched by private sector investment.

Businesses say they are already delivering ultra-fast broadband in Whangarei.

Northpower has several new connection requests each day for its new fibre network in the central business district, says Darren Mason, fibre and marketing manager.

The network is delivering speeds of up to 100 megabits per second and exceeding expectations, he says.

“To put some context around the speeds being achieved, if you were to download a 700Mb movie it would only take 56 seconds compared with 28 hours, 27 minutes on a 56Kbps dial-up modem,” he says.

Northpower will continue to expand its network and plans to work with the government in its new plan.

However, Mr Mason believes the government’s timetable of 10 years is too long and the broadband should be rolled out sooner.

Mr Mason says Northpower has also submitted a proposal to government along with Top Energy, the Northland Regional Council and Kordia for high-speed broadband in rural areas.

Telecom New Zealand is also planning to work with the Crown Fibre Investment Company to expand its ultra-fast broadband network.

This year alone, Telecom is investing $1.3b to improve the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, says chief executive Paul Reynolds.

In Whangarei, Telecom’s network access business, Chorus, is installing roadside cabinets and laying fibre optic cables in its fibre-to-the-node scheme.

Fourteen faster broadband cabinets have been installed or upgraded in Maunu, Raumanga and the Port Rd area, benefiting more than 3100 customers.

Chorus plans to have a total of 42 cabinets and 15km of extra fibre optic cable installed in Whangarei by the end of 2010.

The government is welcoming comments from interested parties on its broadband initiative by April 27, go to http://www.med.govt.nz/broadband for more information.

View the article at stuff.co.nz

Find out more about our Fibre developments in the Fibre Network Section

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