Spark’s RWC stream wobbles

Rugby World Cup streaming wobbled then stabilised

Spark Sport's Rugby World Cup streaming got off to a sound start on the tournament's opening night with 60,000 viewers watching Japan beat Russia.

It then ran into problems during the high profile All Blacks - Springboks match with some viewers facing pixellation, blurring and, in some cases, losing the stream altogether.

On the night Spark Sport reached for its back-up plan and shifted live coverage to TVNZ for the remainder of the game.

Small number of customers affected

Spark Sport says the issues only affected a "small number" of customers. This seems to be underlined by the viewer numbers, during the match the peak number of streams was 132,000. This dropped by only 6000 to 126,000 after TVNZ coverage kicked in.

The problem was identified as an issue getting the video streams back from the US to New Zealand. This was fixed with upstream configuration changes. Spark Sport boss Jeff Latch told media he was confident streaming will work perfectly for the remainder of the tournament.

The rest of the first week of coverage passed without incident. New Zealand's domestic broadband networks appeared to perform flawlessly during the busiest week yet. Chorus says traffic on its peaked at 2.3 terabits per second during the All Blacks game.

Spark offers 5G to Otago's favoured few

Spark claims a technical victory in the race to build New Zealand's first working 5G network after switching on services in the small central Otago town of Alexandra.

For now the service is only available to invited customers.

Spark says five more towns will get a similar service between now and Christmas. By then Vodafone plans to have 120 or so 5G towers operating in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

Nokia network gear

The service uses spectrum in the 2600 MHz band. The same frequencies are used elsewhere in New Zealand for 4G coverage. Spark is using its own spectrum along with some owned by Dense Air. The Alexandra network uses Nokia technology.

Spark technology director Mark Beder says testing in Alexandra has seen 5G deliver speeds between five and ten times faster than 4G services in the same area.

Beder says Spark's preference is to use 3500 MHz spectrum, which is due to be auctioned later next year. Vodafone already has access to some 3500 MHz spectrum.

ComCom review finds robust mobile competition, fourth carrier not needed

The Commerce Commission's Mobile Market Study says competition between Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees is robust. It says most indicators of competition are moving in the right direction with customers seeing lower prices, higher quality and a greater choice of services.

While approving of a collective investment of $2.5 billion in networks over the last decade, the commission notes the quality of 4G coverage lags behind comparable overseas markets.

With balanced market shares, there is no pressing need for the regulator to intervene on behalf of a fourth operator.

Carriers happy

As you might expect Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees all issues statements welcoming the report to varying degrees. But Australian-owned Vocus complained about the report finding there is no case to regulate in favour of more virtual mobile network activity.

Vocus New Zealand chief executive Mark Callander says: “We have been very clear that the MVNO market has failed. The cosy pillow fight between the incumbents continues to severely impact competition and innovation in the NZ mobile market".

Shared 5G infrastructure back on agenda

Elsewhere in its report on the mobile sector, the Commerce Commission rethinks its position on shared infrastructure as a way of pushing 5G out to regional New Zealand. While fretting that flat revenues act as a brake on wireless network investment, it says while shared infrastructure can help extend the technologies reach, there's a risk it will reduce competition which can mean higher prices and less innovation.