Sky broadband launch, Spark expands services, 2degrees eyes IPO

Sky launches fibre broadband for pay TV customers

Sky has soft-launched its fibre broadband service by offering it to a small group of existing satellite TV customers. It says there will be a wider roll out in the coming months.

The price is aggressive, but not market shaking. Customers, who must have a pay TV account and commit to a 12 month contract pay $79 a month for an uncapped 1Gbps plan. This compares with around $100 for similar plans from the big service providers.

Sky's deal includes a WiFi 6 router. If needed, customers can get wireless network extenders for an extra $10 a month. An optional voice line costs $10 a month. Sky says it will announce other plan options soon.

Sky Broadband performance in line with the market

In testing Sky says customers saw download speeds of around 900mbps and could upload at 400mbps. This is in-line with other service providers.

Sky is working with Vocus to deliver fibre broadband.

The company's approach, bundling broadband with Pay TV services echos the model used by companies like Trustpower and Contact Energy selling broadband to electricity customers. There is evidence that customers who buy more than one service from a single service provider are less likely to switch accounts.

Managed services now a third of Spark’s revenue

At a presentation for investors, Spark revealed its IT and managed services business business is worth $1.1 billion. That's about a third of group revenues. Spark says it is looking to grow the business by between 5 and 10 percent over the next three years.

One key to this is the continuing move from on-premise storage to the cloud. Spark finance director Stefan Knight says 80 percent of enterprises will have moved all storage to the cloud over that period. To date only 25 to 30 percent of New Zealand enterprises have made that move.

Spark opens 5G and IoT innovation studio

Digital economy minister Dr David Clark opened Spark's innovation studio. The studio, located beneath Spark's Auckland headquarters aims to showcase technologies and applications that can make use of the company's 5G and IoT networks.

The studio is divided into four zones; utilities management, smart environments, emerging technologies and asset management. Spark says the studio is the first place where businesses can test applications on all of its wireless networks: 4G, 5G, Cat M1, NB IoT and LoRaWAN.

2degrees considers sharemarket listing

Trilogy International says it is looking at a possible listing of 2degrees on the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges. The Canadian-based company owns 73 percent of the telco. Trilogy's President Brad Horwitz says strong sharemarkets, high values for telecoms assets, and the high value of the New Zealand dollar made a partial float attractive. If it goes ahead, the float will take place in late 2021 or early 2022.

Vodafone switches on 5G in Mount Maunganui

Vodafone has switched on its 5G network in Mount Maunganui. The company says while the footprint is small for now, it will extend coverage to other areas of Tauranga soon.

Tutela finds Spark and 2degrees lead in consistent quality

Spark and 2degrees beat Vodafone in Tutela's mobile snapshot Excellent Consistent Quality category. The snapshot measures the typical experience of users on mobile networks. Vodafone beat its rivals in the fastest data speed category while 2degrees has better latency than the other carriers. Tutela's findings come from 2.5 billion network quality measurements made between December 2020 and February 2021.

New Zealand PC sales hit record in 2020

IDC's Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker says computer makers shipped 826,000 units in New Zealand last year. That’s 12.3 percent higher than the year earlier and an all-time record. Notebooks were most in demand with sales up 21.7 percent on the year earlier. Desktop PC sales were down 15.1 percent year-on-year. Commercial PC shipments were up 18.3 percent, consumer PC sales climbed 5.2 percent.

Spark and Genesis support low-decile school STEM programme

Over 900 Auckland students from low-decile schools are taking part in a science, technology, engineering and maths programme run by Genesis and Spark. Genesis has run the programme for 15 years. Recently Spark has joined the project with students visiting the company's 5G Race Zone at the Emirates Team New Zealand base in the Wynyard Quarter.