Orcon Xbox deal lures gigabit gamers

Orcon consumer general manager Taryn Hamilton says his company will be first off the block when gigabit fibre services go live around New Zealand on October 1.

Hamilton says Orcon will be aggressive going after the market. It is selling an unlimited, naked gigabit plan for $135.

To sweeten the deal, Orcon will give an Xbox One S to customers signing a 24-month contract. Those signing for 12 months will get one month free.

Hamilton says Orcon was the first ISP to offer Ultra-Fast Broadband and plans to stay ahead of the pack. “We’ve been providing gigabit plans in Dunedin since 2014 and we have the technology and systems to support high-end plans”, he says.

Orcon is only one of four broadband brands owned by Vocus, New Zealand’s third largest telecommunications company after Spark NZ and Vodafone.

The other Vocus broadband brands are Callplus, Slingshot and Flip. Although each sell similar products and in some cases share infrastructure and services, each addresses a different market sector. Orcon targets more technically advanced and more demanding customers.

Big cities first

Orcon says it has already begun taking orders for its gigabit plans in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch. Dunedin already has gigabit fibre.

Hamilton says existing customers who order an upgrade this week can expect to download at gigabit speeds in about a week. Orcon says it will take a little longer to put customers transferring from other ISPs online.

Orcon says the first gigabit areas will soon be joined by New Plymouth, Whangarei, Cambridge and Te Awamutu.

To show the company’s preparation for faster fibre speeds Orcon showed journalists around its central Auckland facility, one of three sites in the city servicing fibre customers.

At the site, Orcon showed cabinets full of caching hardware including equipment for Google-You Tube, Facebook and Akamai. It has similar equipment in a handful of sites around the country. Orcon says it now caches more than half its network traffic locally and this helps gets data to customers faster.