Crown Fibre Holdings now government infrastructure vehicle

The Crown Fibre Holdings model used to build New Zealand's fibre network is being extended to give councils a way to build other essential infrastructure. 

It's not just the model. CFH itself has become the body overseeing the projects. It's new name is Crown Infrastructure Partners. 

CIP will start straight away with two Auckland infrastructure projects in Wainui and around Drury costing $588 million. It will receive money from targeted council rates and user charges for the infrastructure being built. Councils using CIP in this way will have the option of buying back the assets developed at a later date.  

Finance Minister Steven Joyce says government will invest $600 million in Crown Infrastructure Partners to get it started, he expects private sector investors to join later. 

The lessons from the nationwide UFB fibre build are behind the new plan. Joyce says: "We learnt from the ultra-fast broadband programme that if we de-risk some of the early stages of the investment, we can bring in private sector investors to take on much of the heavy lifting as the investments mature.

"We expect the Crown’s investment in each project to be matched with at least one to one with private sector investment over time."

It may be some time yet. Government is putting the first $600 million into the pot to fund two projects expected to cost $588 million.

Most of the money will be spent on the Drury South development. This is see 180ha of business and industrial development. It includes 700 new houses.

With work on the first stage of the UFB fibre build entering its final stages and the winning bids for UFB2 soon to be announced, CFH's initial role is winding down. Recycling the organisation is simpler and cheaper than establishing a new one.

 New Zealanders naïve on Wifi safety: Symantec

Two-out-of-three New Zealanders think their personal data is safe when they use public Wifi hotspots. Roughly the same number use hotspots regardless of the consequences. Hardly any users know if they are transmitting data safely when using public wi-fi. These are some of the finding of Symantec’s 2017 Wifi Risk Survey.

Wifi is popular. Symantec found a little over half of all New Zealanders ask for a Wifi password when at locations such as a friend's house, hotel or café. Almost a third ask for that password within minutes of arriving. 

Symantec territory manager Mark Gorrie says the attitudes are out of touch with reality and people often put their personal information at risk. He says 84 percent of people will use public Wifi to check their bank details online.  

Masquerading sites

Gorrie says sites masquerading as legitimate hotspots often set up to lure users and collect private information. It’s not always known what they do with the information, not every collector has a criminal intent. 

One of the strangest findings is that many users think they can tell if the apps they use are secure when transmitting data on Wifi. Gorrie points out that even security experts have no way of knowing this unless they use sophisticated tools to monitor traffic. 

Symantec’s angle on this is that the company sells virtual private network software that can make Wifi use more secure. Gorrie says he recommends this for anyone who may use sensitive information over a Wifi connection. However, he says users who don’t want to go that far should just be more careful about the information they share on public hotspots and make sure their devices are not set to auto-connect when they find an unknown hotspot.  

Australian want NZ-style gigabit, but at a lower price

CommsDay reports on a survey commissioned by MyRepublic in Australia. In it around Australians were told New Zealanders could get residential gigabit internet. They were told this is around one hundred times faster than ADSL and forty times faster than the standard NBN plan. 

When asked if they would like this, 76 percent said yes. They were then told New Zealanders paid $130 a month for the service and were asked what they thought was a fair price, 85 percent of the sample said they thought they should pay less.  

Spark upgrades Cook Strait link

Spark New Zealand says it is has completed an upgrade of the submarine cable linking Nelson in the South Island to Levin in the North Island. 

The cable is one of three data links between the islands, two are owned by Spark.

Campbell Fraser, Spark GM Technology Infrastructure says: “The Nelson-to-Levin cable is shallow buried rather than laid on the surface of the sea floor, and is away from known fault lines."

This means it gives Spark options to route traffic in an emergency and adds resilience to the network.

The cable is 237 km with 212km under water. It was first laid by Telecom NZ in 2001.

Facebook live streams at 4K 

Another minor uptick for bandwidth demand comes from Facebook. From today Facebook users with suitable hardware can view live-stream video at up to 4K resolution. The streams are also available in virtual reality, so users can watch the video on devices like a Samsung Gear VR. Facebook aims to win over video makers to use its site as a distribution channel in competition with the likes of Netflix and Amazon.

British new home buyers see ultrafast broadband as vital

New home buyers in the UK want running water, electricity and ultrafast broadband according to property developer The Berkeley Group. Berkeley chief executive Rob Perrins says: “If we weren’t able to offer fibre, I think there would be the real prospect of some people walking away from property sales.”