Rolleston: New Zealand’s fibre town

If Whangarei is New Zealand’s fibre city, the Canterbury Plains town of Rolleston is our fibre town.

A media release from Enable Networks says more than 15 per cent of Rolleston homes and businesses have switched from copper to fibre. Significantly, it is less than six months since Enable Networks lit the town’s fibre network.

Enable says it has received almost 600 orders for fibre broadband from the town. That is almost three times the national uptake rate.

Earthquakes

Rolleston is a special case. Although the town was close to the centre of the Christchurch earthquakes, the land is stable. This means Rolleston is one of the fastest growing towns in the country with people leaving the nearby city moving into new subdivisions.

Even so, leading the country on fibre adoption is a feather in the town’s cap and an indication something special could be brewing out on the Canterbury Plains.

Is it significant or just co-incidence that the two New Zealand places leading the way on fibre are where networks are being built by local fibre companies, not Chorus? Possibly. One thing is for sure. Enable Networks and NorthPower are more interested in building networks than taking the Commerce Commission to court.