One NZ to retire HFC (cable) network

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#3444599 16-Dec-2025 16:14

Rickles:

>Will be years if not decades before the last bit of the HFC network is removed.<

I am constantly surprised how many projects get approved without 'removal & clean-up' Clauses in them.

Apparently the HFC networks DID have those clauses.

Bill Bennett www.billbennett.co.nz @billbennettnz

billbennett

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#3444601 16-Dec-2025 16:18

KiwiSurfer:

billbennett:

I can be :) There's legal requirement for Vodafone (now One NZ) to clear up the HFC network. The cost of this is likely to remain higher than the cost of keeping it running even when customer numbers fall. At some point Infratil will want One to clean up its books.

Citation needed.

Standard practice is that old infrastructure to stay in place until someone comes along and removes it because it's in the way of something.

Look at Woosh Wireless -- I still see their towers around. Telecom still has their old cable network equipment out in East Auckland. Etc.

Will be years if not decades before the last bit of the HFC network is removed.

Off the top of my head I can't quote chapter and verse. However, somewhere in the 300 or so paper notebooks in my cupboard there are shorthand notes from an interview when an ex-Vodafone exec explained the deal. He was saying Voda or (One NZ now) will carry on keeping HFC live as long as possible because the clean-up liability is significant....

Bill Bennett www.billbennett.co.nz @billbennettnz

Rickles

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#3444627 16-Dec-2025 17:17

Apart from the suburban cabling, wasn't there some sort of fibre component running along the main trunk rail line?

billbennett

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#3444628 16-Dec-2025 17:20

Rickles:

Apart from the suburban cabling, wasn't there some sort of fibre component running along the main trunk rail line?

From memory that was Clear, which merged with Telstra to become TelstraClear.

Bill Bennett www.billbennett.co.nz @billbennettnz

Rickles

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#3444675 16-Dec-2025 17:36

I remember Whoosh, and it was a brilliant, cheaper option than what Telecom was then offering .... also kept free the very busy telephone line in the house 😁

They had a store front in upper Tory Street here in Wellington. Sadly went out of business about 12 years ago? but by then broadband/non-dialup was starting to come to market.

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#3444678 16-Dec-2025 18:04

Rickles:

Sadly went out of business about 12 years ago? but by then broadband/non-dialup was starting to come to market.

It was mid-2016: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/creditors-vote-to-put-woosh-wireless-into-liquidation/LU7VFTFF74PT235MOR5BHM7NCE/

By the time this happened fibre had really taken over and mobile broadband was cheaper than when Woosh launched, so the market for a (somewhat) niche product like Woosh became quite small, from memory.

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#3444703 16-Dec-2025 19:57

billbennett:

Rickles:

Apart from the suburban cabling, wasn't there some sort of fibre component running along the main trunk rail line?

From memory that was Clear, which merged with Telstra to become TelstraClear.

Yep. If you walk down a street in many CBDs and keep your eyes on the ground then you'll see covers with names from bygone eras, e.g. Clear and FX come to mind.

quickymart

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#3444704 16-Dec-2025 19:58

Yes indeed, lots of Telstra Clear manhole covers around the North Shore still.

dafman

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#3444788 17-Dec-2025 08:14

I'll be hounding One to the ends of the earth if our street's overhead cable is not removed.

quickymart

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#3444792 17-Dec-2025 08:38

They'll probably tell you to go call Chorus 😆

Rickles

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#3444848 17-Dec-2025 09:18

One could also petition the Local Authority .... for example, under the WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL POLICY ON UNDERGROUNDING OF OVERHEAD CABLES they state that "The Council will work with utility operators to establish reasonable conditions of appearance for overhead cable networks".

Defunct cabling could be deemed to be of an unreasonable appearance?

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#3444849 17-Dec-2025 09:20

billbennett:

Rickles:

Apart from the suburban cabling, wasn't there some sort of fibre component running along the main trunk rail line?

From memory that was Clear, which merged with Telstra to become TelstraClear.

And after TelstraClear it was Vodafone NZ, which much later became One.

IIRC, Clear had a common shareholding interest with the people who then owned the company now known as KiwiRail, so they were able to get access to the rail corridor to lay fibre, not just on the NIMT but elsewhere, e.g. between Marton and New Plymouth via Whanganui.
Since legally as I understand it when a road and railway intersect it's the rail granting an easement for the road (not vice versa), Clear could just run a railway-wagon mounted cable layer and trench right across any intersecting roads because they were laying "railway infrastructure". Telecom (as Spark was then called) had to use road reserves and directionally drill under intersecting roads or railways, which put them at a huge cost disadvantage.
Ah the Good Olde Days!

Vodafone (as it then was) reactivated some of that old Main Trunk Line Clear fibre to provide a 1Gbps link into Waiouru Army Camp from Hamilton - they only then had to install a small tail section between the NIMT and the Camp. No other provider was able to offer such capacity at the time for less than ten times as much. This was the early 2000s IIRC, 1Gbps was waaay fast at the time, alternative proposals were microwave links at 100Mbps.

raytaylor

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#3444851 17-Dec-2025 09:31

Rickles:

One could also petition the Local Authority .... for example, under the WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL POLICY ON UNDERGROUNDING OF OVERHEAD CABLES they state that "The Council will work with utility operators to establish reasonable conditions of appearance for overhead cable networks".

Defunct cabling could be deemed to be of an unreasonable appearance?

I think your all missing one important motivational point...
Overhead cables have a monthly colocation fee to the pole owner - which would be wellington electricity.

I am not sure what the individual district plans contained for underground utilities when they were installed, but these days almost every district plan requires removal of any lines that are not in use. Though there is zero enforcement - especially when you consider all the abandoned chorus/telecom cables all over the place.

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#3444852 17-Dec-2025 09:39

PolicyGuy:

Vodafone (as it then was) reactivated some of that old Main Trunk Line Clear fibre to provide a 1Gbps link into Waiouru Army Camp from Hamilton

I love these stories.

I look at the vodafone north island fiber maps which has all the stuff they inherited from telstra clear and its amazing some of the places they laid fiber to in the middle of nowhere, thats been defunct for 15+ years now.
Or if i go into a commerical building and I see telstra clear fiber terminations and it was only ever used for one customer, then the subsequent ones all used DSL until chorus UFB was installed.

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Grunta47

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#3444863 17-Dec-2025 10:45

PolicyGuy:

Since legally as I understand it when a road and railway intersect it's the rail granting an easement for the road (not vice versa), Clear could just run a railway-wagon mounted cable layer and trench right across any intersecting roads because they were laying "railway infrastructure". Telecom (as Spark was then called) had to use road reserves and directionally drill under intersecting roads or railways, which put them at a huge cost disadvantage.

Obviously someone with inside information....but not quite right :-)
While laying along the rail line Clear still had to abide by local council conditions when at roads, so could not just trench across intersections. Yes, Rail owns the intersection but the state of the pavement had to be the same as it was before, if not better (if there was a pothole before, you couldn't just leave the same).

Clear never used any railway-wagon mounted cable layers. Everything was tractor mounted or ditchwitch vibrating plow (or similar make).

NZ Rail did have a railway-wagon mounted plow that was towed by an engine and took a huge amount of resource/planning to use. I doubt it's been used for many years.

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