Chorus Product Announcement is Great News for UFB Roll-Out

Chorus Product Announcement is Great News for UFB Roll-Out

Today’s announcement by Chorus that it will consult with retail service providers (RSPs) on new fibre-broadband products is great news for the 30% of Kiwi households and businesses who are expected to sign up for ultra-fast broadband (UFB) by 2020, the Coalition for Fair Internet Pricing said today.

“Along with ensuring there is great content available, today’s announcement is a great way to encourage more Kiwi households and businesses to switch from slower copper internet connections to the new faster fibre connections,” a spokeswoman for the coalition, Sue Chetwin, also chief executive of Consumer NZ, said today.

“From black-and-white TVs to colour, or from standard call-and-text cell-phones to Smartphones, Kiwis have always been prepared to migrate to better technology when it becomes available, even if it is more expensive in the short run.

“Today’s announcement from Chorus indicates to us that the company is thinking more innovatively about how to encourage migration from copper to fibre, instead of lobbying the government to impose a copper tax on the 70% of Kiwi household and businesses who are not expected to sign up for the new service by 2020, or the 25% of Kiwi households and businesses who will never have access to the faster service.

”The announcement means there is even less justification for the government’s proposed copper tax, which would represent a subsidy paid by consumers to the shareholders of Chorus, for no benefit.”

The Coalition for Fair Internet Pricing was founded by Consumer NZ, InternetNZ, and the Telecommunication Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) and is supported by CallPlus and Slingshot, the Federation of Maori Authorities, Greypower, Hautaki Trust, KiwiBlog, KLR Holdings, National Urban Maori Authorities, New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations, Orcon, Rural Women, Te Huarahi Tika Trust and the Unite Union.

A Covec study for the coalition, which has been peer reviewed by Network Strategies and found to be conservative, concluded that the government’s proposed copper tax would cost Kiwi households and businesses between $390 million and $449 million between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2019 over the price for copper broadband and voice services that Commerce Commission work indicates is fair. The latest demands by Chorus would take this cost to Kiwi households and businesses to $979 million.

ENDS

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