High speed broadband rollout enters final phase

High speed broadband rollout enters final phase

Chorus is rapidly approaching the finish line of its massive programme of work to rev-up broadband speeds across New Zealand with only 600 high speed broadband cabinets left to deploy.

With just over six months to go, Chorus is now more than 80 percent of the way to completing the rollout of 2,500km of fibre optic cable and 3,600 roadside cabinets to help boost broadband speeds to at least 10Mbps for urban customers living too far away from the broadband equipment in their local telephone exchange.

Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe said that the lessons they've learnt from delivering one of the largest broadband network upgrades the country has ever seen will be invaluable when they begin work on the next stage of New Zealand's broadband journey, fibre to the home.

"Over the past three and a half years New Zealand's broadband reach and performance has been steadily improving while we've been humming along extending fibre further into local neighbourhoods,"

"Within the next few months, Nelson, Tauranga, Whakatane, Porirua, Ashburton and Timaru will join the list of towns where we've completed our cabinet upgrades, with all remaining areas to be completed before the end of the year," he said.

Mr Ratcliffe said that they've upgraded the local telecommunications network with the future in mind. "Around half the homes connected to our cabinets are within five hundred metres of our fibre optic cable network and ninety percent within one kilometre, giving us a head start on our journey to a fibre future," he said.

About 800 people from a range of organisations have been involved in the project across the country. Christchurch manufacturers Shape Technology and Eaton Electrical have played a pivotal role, helping establish a manufacturing production line that has reliably been able to produce several thousand new cabinets despite the best efforts of two major earthquakes.

Chorus began its national programme in Auckland's Point Chevalier in March 2008 and, combined with the upgrade of broadband equipment in telephone exchanges, aims to enable broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps for 80 percent of New Zealanders by the end of 2011.

As well as taking fibre deeper into suburbs, Chorus' project has taken fibre to new towns including Te Anau, Akaroa, Gisborne and Westport. Chorus also regularly deploys fibre direct to business premises, as well as homes in new subdivisions. In the last year it added several thousand kilometres of fibre to the wider Telecom network, taking the total amount of fibre in the network to 27,400km.

Fibre-fed cabinet rollout progress by region:

Regional Council

Percentage Complete

Auckland

78%

Bay of Plenty

81%

Canterbury

83%

Gisborne

51%

Hawks Bay

82%

Manawatu

87%

Marlborough

73%

Nelson

77%

Northland

99%

Otago

82%

Southland

84%

Taranaki

74%

Tasman

78%

Waikato

80%

Wellington

76%

Westland

100%

Fibre-fed cabinet facts:

* Chorus has been upgrading cabinets across more than 20 centres around New Zealand. Taupo, Greymouth, Gore and Whangarei were the first towns to have their broadband upgrades completed
* About 750,000 customers will be connected to Chorus' cabinets by the end of 2011
* Each cabinet will generally service up to 300 customers
* The cabinet body is made of 240kg of marine grade aluminium
* Cabinets are coated in a special paint to facilitate graffiti removal
* They contain battery back-up power supply as well as a generator connection in case of power-cuts
* At full load a cabinet uses 1200 watts, the same power as a one-bar heater
* They are designed to limit noise to about 30 decibels, just above the level of a whisper
* 650 key parts in each cabinet (1,150 including fastenings)
* 2 tonnes of concrete per cabinet base

About Chorus

Chorus is the operationally separate Telecom business unit that manages the local access network in New Zealand. The Chorus network is made up of local telephone exchanges and copper or fibre optic cables that connect approximately 1.8 million New Zealand homes and businesses. Its field service technicians visit more than one million homes and businesses each year to install or repair phone or internet services for a range of telecommunications providers.

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