What you’ll pay for Vodafone gigabit fibre

New Zealand’s second largest ISP, Vodafone, says it will soon offer gigabit fibre plans.

The price in the Northpower, Enable and Ultra Fast Fibre UFB areas will be $140 a month. It says “Elsewhere”, read that as the Chorus UFB area, prices will be released in the “near future”.

Vodafone stands out from the service provider pack in two important ways. First, it owns a vertically integrated cable network in Wellington, Christchurch and the Kapiti Coast.

Second, it is working towards a merger with Sky TV which will put it in the box seat for local sport, movie and television services.

Vodafone has rebranded its hybrid fiber-coaxial network as FibreX. The company’s consumer director Matt Williams says there has been a $22 million investment upgrading this network for gigabit services.

Williams says there will be a compelling offer for customers in the network area to upgrade in the near future. Most observers expect that to include a bundled price that includes SkyTV services.

Vodafone’s FibreX price will be interesting. Because the UFB network will overbuild the FibreX network, there’s a competitive constraint on the amount Vodafone can charge set by the fibre network wholesalers.

At the same time, the FibreX network is vertically integrated, so there is no-one clipping the ticket.

What you’ll pay for gigabit fibre broadband

MyRepublic charges $60 for the first six months for customers signing a 24-month contract. Over the period of the contract the monthly fee works out at $105.

Orcon customers signing for 24 months get an Xbox One S.

There is a $50 installation fee at Bigpipe but no contracts.

Existing Spark broadband customers get the Lightbox video-on-demand service and free access to the nationwide wi-fi hotspot network. There’s also a $10 a month discount when a mobile phone is on the same account.

Full Flavour is running a promotion where new customers pay only $100 a month for the first 12 months. There are no long-term contracts and installation is free.

Prices are complicated at 2degrees. A connection costs $95 a month, then you pay $45 for a 1Gbps “speed boost”. Customers signing for 24-months pay $60 a month for the first 12-months. The monthly cost over the full period of the contract works out at around $124 a month. There’s a $10 a month discount to 2degrees phone customers.