Chorus finishes UFB1 build on time, on budget

Chorus connected the last segment of fibre in the first stage of its UFB roll-out earlier this week. The company says it completed the network on time and on budget.

Communications minister Kris Faafoi joined Chorus CEO JB Rousselot at an event to mark the completion.

Chorus laid around 28,000km of fibre cable or 2.2 million km of individual strands in the UFB1 network. It reaches 28 cities and towns. At the event, Faafoi said 79 percent of the population now have fibre. This will rise to 87 percent in 2022 when the second UFB phase completes.

Topping the fibre table

Completion means that New Zealand is now one of the top eight countries for fibre connections in the OECD.

Uptake across the network is a little over 55 percent. In ten locations the figure is above 60 percent.

Chorus fibre customers now download an average of 360GB of data each month. This compares with around 12GB when the project started. During that time the average connection speed has climbed from 10Mbps to 125Mbps.

Spark fixed wireless 5G goes live in South Island towns

Spark says it is offering commercial 5G fixed wireless broadband services in five more small South Island towns. A 5G trial service was already live in Alexandra, that service now goes commercial. The 5G network now covers Westport, Clyde, Twizel, Tekapo and Hokitika. Spark plans to add more locations next year.

Mark Beder, Spark technology director says his company picked those towns because are already high users of fixed wireless services.

The South Island 5G service uses 2600 MHz spectrum and Nokia hardware. Spark needs to wait until the auction before it can more to the preferred 3500 MHZ band.

Spark is selling plans as 5G Discover and 5G Discover Entertainment. There are levels of data cap. Prices start at $75 for a 60GB data cap and rise to $95 for 600GB.

Consumer telco complaints rising

The Commerce Commission's recent complaints snapshot reports a 24 percent year on year rise in consumer companies about retail service providers. The Commission received a total of almost 9000 complaints up 20 percent on the year earlier, 727 concerned RSPs.

Vodafone eyes 5G power savings

Vodafone says it will reduce electricity consumption by at least 10 percent over the next three years as it switches to more efficient technologies. Among other initiatives, the company says the move to 5G from 2 and 3G mobile will reduce electricity use in the core network. The company also plans to upgrade its batteries and power systems.

Sky picks TVNZ as free-to-air Olympics partner

Sky says TVNZ will be its free-to-air partner for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Sky will stream and broadcast a wide selection of events while TVNZ 1 will show 12 hours of free-to-air coverage each day.