Download Weekly: Chorus upgrades business fibre

Chorus boosts business fibre with faster speeds, improved support

Chorus has refreshed its business fibre portfolio with a range of upgrades including a new 1 Gbps symmetrical plan.

There are also higher committed information rates for critical cloud applications and video collaboration. The fibre wholesaler now promises faster service restoration and offers improved reporting.

Dan Kelly, Chorus’ general manager of access, says competitive pressures mean businesses are more reliant on digital connectivity and need better services to support them.

Research highlights business needs

He cites research from Xero and the NZ Institute of Economic Research showing significant economic gains from broader cloud tool adoption.

“Recent Xero reporting shows adoption of digital tools is a key enabler for small business productivity growth, both at a national and individual level.

“Insights from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research show that a 20 percent increase in the number of businesses adopting cloud-based business tools in the future could add up to $7.8 billion to New Zealand’s GDP through increased productivity.”

Chorus has its own research into how businesses depend on reliable connections:
• Businesses can now operate just 6.9 hours without internet (down from 9.6 hours in 2022)
• The top four impacts of an outage are operational disruption (54 percent), customer dissatisfaction (49 percent), productivity loss (48 percent) and revenue loss (43 percent)
• 60 percent of businesses cite fast restoration as their most critical need.

New Zealand third in world for fixed wireless adoption

Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show New Zealand has the world’s third highest ratio of fixed wireless broadband subscribers.

Fixed wireless access accounts for 20 percent of New Zealand’s broadband connections. That’s a long way behind the 39 percent of FWA connections in Czechia, which is the leading user of the technology, but more than three times the average of 6 percent across all OECD countries.

In its report ‌Fibre and 5G continue to expand their footprint, while fixed wireless access gains ground in OECD countries the OECD notes FWA subscriptions are growing faster than fibre subscriptions in member nations. Last year they grew by an average of 17 percent.

The report says:

“Several of the countries above the OECD average, such as New Zealand, face geographic challenges that make fixed wireless solutions more attractive. This includes large and sparsely populated countries such as Australia (10 percent), Canada (7 percent) and the United States (6.8 percent).”

New Zealand also ranks highly for fibre adoption. It is ninth out of the 38 OECD nations. Fibre accounts for around 70 percent of broadband connections. For comparison, Korea has 90 percent fibre connections. Australia ranks 29th on the OECD list with 26 percent.

Spark offers unlimited mobile plan with Netflix

Spark New Zealand has introduced a new $95 per month Pay Monthly mobile plan that offers unlimited data at maximum speeds and includes a Netflix Standard subscription. The company says the Netflix subscription would normally cost $26 a month.

The plan includes unlimited calls and texts to New Zealand and Australia, 200 minutes and 100 texts to a handful of international destinations. It also includes a One Number smartwatch plan.

NCSC: Online crime costs New Zealanders $1.6 billion

A survey conducted for the National Cyber Security Centre says New Zealanders lost around $1.6 billion to online crime in the last year.

The survey found that more than half the adult population (54 percent) experienced an online threat in the last six months and 830,000 experienced some financial loss.

The figure is higher than the amount reported to the agency through its normal reporting channels.

Mike Jagusch, the NCSC’s director of mission enablement says the agency knows cyber attacks are under-reported. But it isn’t only about money, online crime leads to loss of time, loss of personal information and has a mental impact.

Spectrum management updates direct to mobile information

There’s a recent update to the Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) website to provide more information about the direct to mobile services now offered by satellite companies.

As the page notes, both the US and Australian governments have made moves in this area. It also says the sector is developing rapidly and any regulations could be subject to change.

Singtel launches app-based 5G network slicing for iPhones, iPads

One of the selling points of 5G technology before it was launched was the ability to create network slices. It does happen, but not as often as the pre-5G hype suggested. One local example is Tū Ātea’s private 5G network for CentrePort in Wellington. See Download Weekly 14 02 25.

Now Singtel says it is the first telco in Asia to offer 5G network slicing for enterprise users on supported iPhone and iPad models. It says slicing will improve the performance of business apps, even in congested network conditions.

Enterprises can use a dedicated slice of Singtel’s 5G network for apps that support Apple’s traffic categories or are managed via mobile device management systems. The technology prioritises data traffic and allocates resources for key applications.

This effectively amounts to Business Class 5G for customers willing to pay a premium.

Singtel says the service benefits users of apps needing high performance, consistent bandwidth and low latency. Supported apps include Microsoft Teams, Zoom, FaceTime and WhatsApp.

The capability works on iPhone 14 and newer models running iOS 18.2 or later, and selected iPads with iPadOS 18.2 or above.

Apple adds accessibility features to iPhone and other hardware

Apple says it will launch new accessibility features later this year across its devices, including iPhone, Mac and others. It will add Accessibility Nutrition Labels to the App Stores. These are designed to help users understand the accessibility features of apps before downloading them.

New features include an iPhone-like Magnifier app for the Mac for users with visual impairments. There are other new tools aimed at enhancing both visual and hearing accessibility. Among these are Braille Access and a system-wide Reading Mode, which will improve usability for individuals requiring screen reading and text assistance. 

Braille Access is a note-taking feature for braille users available on Vision Pro, iPhone, iPad and Mac. Vision Pro will also benefit from enhanced zoom capabilities and real-time recognition technology. Existing features such as Voice Control and Background Sounds will see improvements.

Apple satellite messaging extended to iPhone 13

Elsewhere Apple released iOS 18.5 this week which adds support for satellite messaging services, where available, to the iPhone 13 models (that’s the 2022 iPhone). This only applies to services provided by carriers, Apple’s own Emergency SOS satellite calling services are restricted to the iPhone 14 and later models.

In other news...

Vector reviews Auckland-centric data network division
Rob O’Neill reports on Vector mulling over its fibre network options for Reseller News.

Xero cracks $2 billion revenue for first time but subscriber growth slows
Writing at the NZ Herald, Chris Keall explains the importance of Australia to the Wellington-based company’s results.

The business opportunity of the century – and NZ lags the world
Newsroom’s Jonathan Milne says “Mistrustful New Zealanders have among the slowest uptakes of artificial intelligence in the world, prompting warnings we’re going to miss the boat.”

US wants to launch more satellites from NZ
RNZ reporter Phil Pennington was on Morning Report this week talking about the US military holding talks with New Zealand about launching more satellites from this country.

NZ space sector added $2.5b to the economy last year
CommsDay (not available on the web) reports:

The space and advanced aviation sectors added NZ$2.5 billion to the New Zealand economy in 2024, according to a report commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.