Vodafone offers fixed wireless as fibre interim

Ultimate Home Fibre plan customers to get a 4G modem-router while they wait for connection

Vodafone is offering a fixed wireless broadband service to customers waiting for a fibre connection. Customers signing for the Ultimate Home Fibre plan get an Ultra Hub Plus modem. Vodafone says this will give them a "mobile broadband connection over Vodafone’s 4G/3G mobile network while they wait for their fibre broadband to be installed".

In a press release Vodafone's outgoing consumer director Matt Williams says: "Our customers tell us they are frustrated by installation wait times, while others say they are putting off a move to fibre because they simply don’t want to be disconnected while they wait".

Williams says there are significant delays as people wait for fibre. Yet, at the time of writing the average wait for a broadband connection on the Chorus network is 13 days. Enable says it generally connects customers inside two weeks.

Customers can use their Vodafone fixed wireless during the install and avoid any disruptions. After fibre is installed the Ultra Hub Plus modem acts as a backup. If there's a disruption on the fibre network traffic is automatically routed via the fixed wireless network.

Spark offers tradies job service

Spark has launched an online service that it says will connect tradies to customers. The company compares its new WeDo service with Uber and Airbnb. It aims to attract plumbers, electricians, builders and other trades people. WeDo is Spark's latest move to diversify away from retail telecommunications.

The web site steps customers through a process to create a job estimate with prices based on similar jobs done elsewhere. The sales leads are then passed onto the trades people. WeDo says it will aim to give customers three to five quotes. The service includes credit and debit card billing.

Spark says the service are free for customers. Costs are paid by trades people. There's a free option, but the web site warns priority is given to those who pay, those who pay the most get the highest priority. It costs a tradie $60 to get 'up to' ten leads and $200 to get up to 40 leads. WeDo is available in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

Vodafone customer growth

Chris Keall at the NBR reports Vodafone added 18,000 mobile customers in the first quarter of the company's 2018-2019 financial year. Vodafone finished the quarter with 2.58 million customers.

This is a gain of 96,000 on the year. The company has 428,000 fixed line customers compared with 425,000 a year earlier. The numbers were in a report published by Vodafone's parent company in the UK.

Domain Name Commission aims for safe and trustworthy internet

Between October 2017 and March 2018 the Domain Name Commission took more than a hundred .nz websites offline for providing false contact information. The move is part of the DNC's mission to clean up the local internet.

Domain Name commissioner Brent Carey says: “Criminal activity that concerns the abuse of domain names is of concern to the commission and the community. It’s important that people are who they say they are online. We cannot police the whole internet but we want to play our part in making it more diff􏰀icult for criminals to operate in the .nz domain name space.”

In the DNC's first annual report the organisation laid out a new direction which means creating a “safe and trustworthy space” for internet users. To get there it plans to focus on trust, privacy and security in the .nz domain name space.

Earlier this year, the DNC introduced a privacy option for domain name holders who are not in trade. It means no longer need to show their address and phone numbers in places that are public.

People could withhold their address and phone numbers from publicly appearing in search areas – and more than 15,000 do- main names had a privacy option implemented.

Strange to chair Auckland International Airport

Chorus chair Patrick Strange will become the new chair of Auckland International Airport from October 31. Strange will replace the retiring Henry van der Heyden. Strange has been a director of Auckland Airport since 2015. In addition to his role at Chorus he is a director of Mercury NZ, NZX and Essential Energy.

UK shoots for fibre everywhere by 2033

A new national telecoms strategy drawn up by the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport aims for the UK to have nationwide fibre coverage by 2033. By then fibre will go everywhere copper goes today. The strategy also calls for fibre broadband to be fitted as standard in all new homes.