Sudden change at the top for Sky

Moloney replaces Stewart as CEO

Chief commercial officer, Sophie Moloney, is Sky Network Television Limited's new chief executive.

Molony replaces Martin Stewart who is leaving the company to return home to Europe. Stewart has been with Sky for 21 months.

He took over from long-time company boss John Fellet and was given the job of shifting the business from a traditional satellite pay-TV operation to a multi-platform business geared for the fibre era.

Now a broadband company

During Stewart’s time with Sky the pay TV company announced it would become a broadband service provider.

Before taking over a Sky, Stewart was CEO of OSN, a Dubai-based organisation. There he oversaw its adoption of a new digital platform and worked on updating the companies digital infrastructure. Earlier he was chief financial officer and BSkyB in the UK.

Moloney has a 20-year track record in the media sector. She also worked at OSN in Dubai and with Sky in the UK.

Sky Chair Philip Bowman says Malony's recent achievements include: "securing the commercial agreement with Spark to secure Rugby World Cup Rights for pubs and clubs around New Zealand, leading the team that secured New Zealand Rugby and SANZAAR rights, negotiating the new Optus satellite agreement and spearheading Sky’s purchase of entertainment streaming service Lightbox.”

Spark launches $500k digital divide fund

Spark is to provide free home internet access to students at decile 1 high schools. Eligible students will get a Skinny Jump wireless modem and 150GB of data each month for the school year.

Branded as the ‘Ciena Jump for Students Fund’, the project brings together Ciena, Spark Foundation, Skinny and a network of decile 1 high schools around New Zealand. Ciena and Spark will fund the full cost for the school year.

Spark CEO Jolie Hodson says: “We know that digital equity is about more than just broadband access, but it is the first step in the journey and sadly, many of our team of 5 million aren't even at the starting line”.

NZIX offers EdgeConnect peering across Chorus fibre network

A deal between the New Zealand Internet Exchange Limited and Chorus allows NZIX exchange members to peer anywhere on the Chorus UFB network. EdgeConnect is a service that means Chorus will appear as a single switch anywhere on its fibre network. The deal means service providers can peer directly and more efficiently. This will, in turn, improve performance for smaller ISPs.

Radio Spectrum Management rules on 1700-2300MHz

Radio Spectrum Management is allocating more bandwidth for fixed wireless services in the 1700-2300MHz band. Existing rights expire at the end of March 2021. There is some tension between the needs of space operations and telecommunications, which means part of the spectrum is reserved for later decisions. Otherwise, RSM plans to make the lower portion of the paired 2200MHz band (2025-2081.5MHz and 2200-2256.5MHz) available for shared use between land mobile radio and other fixed services as well as space services.

TVNZ on demand shifts from Freeview

TVNZ says its On Demand streaming service will leave the Freeview On Demand service from June 2021. In future viewers will need to use the TVNZ app. The move is not expected to involve any other changes at Freeview.

Hawaiki adds Guam to network

An agreement between Hawaiki Submarine Cable and Hawaiian Telecom gives Hawaiki capacity on the Southeast Asia-United States (SEA-US) cable. The SEA-US cable connects Guam to Los Angeles, Hawaiki also has capacity between Guam and Sydney on the JGA-South cable. The new arrangement means Hawaiki can offer Australian customers an alternative route to the US.