Chorus CEO Kate McKenzie to step down
Kate McKenzie says she will leave Chorus at the end of the year after three years as CEO and managing director. She says she doesn't plan to take another executive role and will return to her home in Australia.
Chorus chairman Patrick Strange says the process to find a successor has already started and the board will consider internal and external candidates.
McKenzie took over at Chorus in December 2016 replacing Mark Ratcliffe.
Culture change
In a media statement McKenzie says she is most proud of the culture change at Chorus under her leadership. She also says the company is now more innovative and customer focused.
During her time at the company Chorus went through a major transformation. This improved efficiency and gave a better customer experience.
Today, nearly three-quarters of fibre installations are completed in a single technician visit. This avoids the need for a separate scoping visit and reduces the effort required from customers to get a connection.
Customer satisfaction has increased and Chorus technicians are often rated as the best part of the fibre ordering and installation experience.
Chorus sees record fibre demand, profit hit by interest costs
Chorus reports a drop in full year net profit as the company faces lower revenue and higher interest costs as it pays for the roll-out of its fibre network.
Net profit after tax was $53 million on revenue of $970 million, down 2 percent from last year's $990 million. Underlying profit was down 2.6 percent to $636, which is in line with guidance. Operating expenses were little changed at $334 million.
The year saw a peak in the fibre rollout and a record uptake with 186,000 installations. While the total number of connections was down 76,000, there was a 9000 line increase in broadband connections. Monthly data use per connection climbed 55GB to 265GB.
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More than 90,000 homes and businesses were added to the UFB coverage map between April and June. The latest official Quarterly Connectivity Report from Crown Infrastructure Partners says 1,576,189 premises are now passed by the network.
Minister of Communications Kris Faafoi says the network is 85 percent complete and still ahead of schedule. Uptake is now 52 percent. When the programme completes in 2022, over 1.8 million homes and businesses will have fibre access.
Mangere to get first Vodafone 5G sites
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Briscoe, Cresswell join Network for Learning board
Former Southern Cross Cable Network CEO Anthony Briscoe has joined the Network for Learning board along with PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Sharon Cresswell. Briscoe was 22 years at Telecom and was in charge of the Southern Cross submarine cable network project. Cresswell has spent 16 years as a PwC partner, among other work she provided assurance, auditing and advisory services for fibre providers, schools and universities.
Former communications minister Clare Curran to leave parliament
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Gartner forecasts 5G hardware bonanza
Gartner says the worldwide market for 5G infrastructure will be worth US$4.2 billion in 2020. That's up 89 percent on 2019. The research company says carriers are using non-stand-alone technology to roll-out 5G alongside existing 4G infrastructure. This lowers costs. Gartner says seven percent of carriers already have some 5G infrastructure in place. Most carriers are aiming their 5G services at enterprise customers and are creating private networks.