Flooding cuts South Island telecommunications
Thousands of South Island Spark customers were cut off last weekend after storms hit the region. The company's fibre cable connecting Ashburton to Timaru was severed during a flood. Engineers had difficulty repairing the cable because of the floods and road closures. This affected broadband, landline and cell towers.
Spark patched the connection with a workaround, but the company's services remained vulnerable. Vodafone's network was not affected so mobile users were able to make emergency calls. A section of Chorus fibre was also damaged at Fox Glacier on the West Coast after a slip.
Minister for Broadcasting, Communications and Digital Media Kris Faafoi says a new fibre cable is on the way to help reduce this kind of problem. He says the Provincial Growth Fund plans to build a fibre route closing a South Island loop between Fox Glacier and Lake Hawea.
Faafoi also says the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is reviewing the resilience of the telecommunications network in the event of natural disasters.
Ultrafast Fibre testing 10 Gbps broadband
Ultrafast Fibre plans to test internet speeds of up to 10 Gbps early in the New Year. The Central North Island fibre company says six retail service providers have expressed interest in a trial which will see customers offered 2 Gbps and 4 Gbps services. UFF says there's a proven demand for faster fibre; last month three in ten new customers opted for 1 Gbps services.
Commerce Commission tweaks TDL for final decision
The Commerce Commission's final decision on how much telcos will each pay towards the government's $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy included a couple of minor changes.
The contributions for Vital and MyRepublic were decreased which means the other 14 telcos will pay a little more than outlined in the draft decision.
Between them Spark, Vodafone, Chorus and 2degrees still get to pay more than 90 percent of the total levy. MyRepublic was rapped over the knuckles for failing to get its information to the commission before the statutory deadline.
Vodafone launches 5G in four cities
Vodafone has switched on New Zealand's first large-scale 5G network with 100 cell towers across Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown. Journalists at the launch recorded download speeds around 500 Mbps. The service is free until July 2020, after which Vodafone will charge an extra $10 monthly.
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Bill Bennett
Sky adds Prime to Freeview
Sky's free-to-air Prime channel will now be available in high definition through Freeview. The company will also add the streaming version of its Prime channel to Freeview. Until now, the HD version of Prime was only available to Sky and Vodafone TV customers.
Spark Sport to show American Football
Spark Sport has signed a partnership with the NFL and will show next year's Super Bowl live. It will also show a selection of NFL games for the rest of the 2019-20 season.
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