Chorus planning to abandon all copper in 10 years

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#3077781 19-May-2023 09:53

Klathman:

I imagine this would then be the equivalent of the costs that happened to install power back in the day, which I believe were still high and often financed, but in a realm that people could still consider financing it. This is in contrast to some of the quotes people have shared which seems like a mortgage-type loan amount.

Back in the Good Old Days (late 1950s / early 1960s) the deal for rural electricity reticulation in the Wanganui Rangitikei Power Board area was a "capital contribution" of 300 pounds and a three-year take-or-pay agreement for a minimum amount of power usage. The average wage in 1960 was about 1,000 pounds per year, so the "capital contribution" was ~1/3 of a year's wages for the average worker, so in today's terms that would represent about a $20,000 up-front fee.

That was in the days well before full cost recovery, and there was definitely an element of cross subsidy from urban to rural consumers. This was seen as a Good Thing by progressing the NZ economy as a whole. Nowadays, that is regarded as old-fashioned thinking bordering on Socialism (horror!)

networkn

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#3077788 19-May-2023 10:26

I'll be surprised if they stick to that original timeline. I believe it will happen, but 10 years seems... Ambitious. It will depend on whether they can convince someone to give them $500M to fund it.

DS248

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#3077789 19-May-2023 10:28

quickymart:

DS248:

..

There should be a process to allow challenges to their costings / designs. We got an estimate of $50k to connect to our property despite there being spare fibre at the roadside connection point (connection to a cell tower from the same location).

Annoying part is they priced on a nonsense 510 m cabling route, almost double the length it should have been. To make matters worse, much of their design route is over a neighbouring property we don't have easement over, whereas the more direct route (up our vehicle access driveway), we do have an easement over. I think part of the problem is our driveway doesn't show in Google maps whereas the longer route they chose does. I sent a response back (via farmside) explaining the situation asking if I could it requoted for the correct route. That was over 9 months ago, with nil response to date (& I'm not holding my breath).

You don't know where the nearest connection point is to your property though - it could indeed be 510m away.

On what basis do you make the claim that I "don't know where the nearest connection point is"?

The quote included a map of the proposed cabling route, which shows where it is connected to the existing fibre. So, yes, I do know. Edited copy of map below (attempt to strip ID info). Red = their proposed 26W cabling route to our 'berm' over neighbouring property.

By the most direct route the connection point is ~240m from the termination point at the gate to our property (thick yellow line - added by me).
By the easiest route the connection point is ~320m from the termination point at the gate to our property (thick pink line- added by me).
By LOS about 170 m from our house.

Quote scope included (Potential ID numbers replace by x's & y's):

Install ABFFP beside U-RDB_xxx
Connect splitter to RDB GPON utilising spare fibre in RDByyy
From new ABFFP, lay 26W RI 510m to berm outside ##### (our property).
Leave lateral a boundary.
From Boundary, lay1W RI 75m to property

Of course this leaves them with a nice 26W cable termination outside our property that can be later used to service neighbouring properties at a fraction of the cost.

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#3077803 19-May-2023 11:10

If they provided you that information that's a different story then, but to be honest I'm no network designer.

When I used to answer calls for internet support (a very long time ago) so many people demanded fibre for free as "it runs past my gate" despite them being well outside the actual rollout area, with no understanding of how it all works, and 99% of the time the "gate fibre" was backhaul fibre. That's the angle I was coming from.

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#3077815 19-May-2023 11:42

Are St John medical alarms still dependent on a copper connection?

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wellygary

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#3077820 19-May-2023 12:06

kiwifidget:

Are St John medical alarms still dependent on a copper connection?

Not exclusively, Cellular is an option....

"Our Home Alarm consists of a base unit that either connects to your home phone line or to the cellular (mobile) network,"

https://www.stjohn.org.nz/medical-alarms/our-products/St-John-alarm-faqs/

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ANglEAUT

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#3077823 19-May-2023 12:23

DS248: Would love to know if we are within the 90% coverage they are aiming to achieve. FWIW, we are just outside the Auckland metro urban area boundary, not out in the backblocks.

I don't know the objectives of Chorus, but I do like this broadbandmap.nz to check current services. Much better than the maps provided by the ISP, imo. There of course also is the Chorus map.

Please keep this GZ community vibrant by contributing in a constructive & respectful manner.

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#3077828 19-May-2023 13:17

ANglEAUT:

DS248: Would love to know if we are within the 90% coverage they are aiming to achieve. FWIW, we are just outside the Auckland metro urban area boundary, not out in the backblocks.

I don't know the objectives of Chorus, but I do like this broadbandmap.nz to check current services. Much better than the maps provided by the ISP, imo. There of course also is the Chorus map.

Nothing new there. Well except that the broadbandmap.nz says we can get VDSL with uplink speed of '5-18' Mbps. We never saw more than ~1.1 Mbps up, and often less than 1 Mbps.

Fibre NA.

boosacnoodle

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#3077949 19-May-2023 21:07

DS248:

Nothing new there. Well except that the broadbandmap.nz says we can get VDSL with uplink speed of '5-18' Mbps. We never saw more than ~1.1 Mbps up, and often less than 1 Mbps.

Fibre NA.

That map is wildly inaccurate. If you provide any feedback they take months to get back to you with a canned response which basically just tells you to pound sand (contact the retailer).

atomeara

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#3077957 19-May-2023 21:46

I feel that is mostly a spin / hype media piece.

They can't withdrawal copper outside SFA (Specified fibre areas)*
I can't see that requirement being dropped in the near future.

There are still a lot of happy customers on 50-120Mb VDSL around the place, where fixed wireless is not available, on stop sell, slower or has data caps. Satellite is double the price of many base wireless/fixed options so won't is unlikely to be seen as an equivalent product nor will it meet digital equity goals.

Where VDSL offers good speeds in non fibre areas it is still the majority connection for those areas, I would say about 70-80% from the map data I have.

So unless Chorus or the Government stump up a large wad of cash to run a lot of fibre it will be status quo.

To make this even more laughable CPI (Crown Infrastructure Partners) has given Chorus funding over the last year to install about 100 new VDSL cabinets, which will stretch out to late 2024.

https://sp.chorus.co.nz/product-update/rural-broadband-additional-copper-service-upgrades

https://sp.chorus.co.nz/product-update/rural-broadband-copper-service-upgrades

* https://comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/telecommunications/projects/specified-fibre-areas

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#3077961 19-May-2023 22:05

boosacnoodle:

DS248:

Nothing new there. Well except that the broadbandmap.nz says we can get VDSL with uplink speed of '5-18' Mbps. We never saw more than ~1.1 Mbps up, and often less than 1 Mbps.

Fibre NA.

That map is wildly inaccurate. If you provide any feedback they take months to get back to you with a canned response which basically just tells you to pound sand (contact the retailer).

Not only are they useless for customers, they scrape data and list it regardless of if it's correct or not.

I tried about four times to get them to correct some horrifically incorrect information, and then gave up. And thats from the RSP side.

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#3077962 19-May-2023 22:11

nztim:
Give them the $500 Million get fibre everywhere.

I agree however a condition is that no farmer can ever say again they aren’t being heavily subsidised by taxpayers for UFB. So they are not allowed to bleat again about how they do everything for our society and “townies” have no idea. That constant attitude of entitlement I find very frustrating.

Klathman

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#3078474 22-May-2023 08:40

PolicyGuy:

Klathman:

I imagine this would then be the equivalent of the costs that happened to install power back in the day, which I believe were still high and often financed, but in a realm that people could still consider financing it. This is in contrast to some of the quotes people have shared which seems like a mortgage-type loan amount.

Back in the Good Old Days (late 1950s / early 1960s) the deal for rural electricity reticulation in the Wanganui Rangitikei Power Board area was a "capital contribution" of 300 pounds and a three-year take-or-pay agreement for a minimum amount of power usage. The average wage in 1960 was about 1,000 pounds per year, so the "capital contribution" was ~1/3 of a year's wages for the average worker, so in today's terms that would represent about a $20,000 up-front fee.

That was in the days well before full cost recovery, and there was definitely an element of cross subsidy from urban to rural consumers. This was seen as a Good Thing by progressing the NZ economy as a whole. Nowadays, that is regarded as old-fashioned thinking bordering on Socialism (horror!)

I know that's a lot of money but if there was a way to finance it then it's WAYYYYYYY better than some of the quotes coming through at the moment. I do think that rural people shouldn't expect to get it installed for free and this might be a good middle ground.

Maybe get the banks on board to provide what they have with the Healthy Homes loans.

I've always been uncomfortable with Chrous expecting that someone fully funds the exchange infrastructure if they ask first and then Chorus own that infrastructure.

I do wonder why Chrous is the only one talking about this though. I know that the Waikato lines companies sold the fibre business but I really expected that they would be keen to expand. Radio silence since the initial UFB1 build.

evilengineer

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#3078499 22-May-2023 10:03

BarTender:
nztim:

Give them the $500 Million get fibre everywhere.

I agree however a condition is that no farmer can ever say again they aren’t being heavily subsidised by taxpayers for UFB. So they are not allowed to bleat again about how they do everything for our society and “townies” have no idea. That constant attitude of entitlement I find very frustrating.

No different to hospitality owners and tourist operators complaining about work shy beneficiaries suddenly becoming desperate for handouts during Covid.

Golden rule: Welfare is bad until it's me in need of help. 😀

Anyway, onto the wider point. The fibre network should be extended as far as is practicable on equity/nation building basis. Those farmers and rural dwellers helped pay the $1.5Bn seed funding that got the UFB programme off the ground for townies, why shouldn't the townies return the favour for the country folk?

If the original UFB model if followed the investment money comes back to the crown eventually as loans are repaid and the country gets to complete a productivity boosting network that, just like the copper network before it, has the potential to last a 100 years.

Sounds like a bargain.

The alternative seems to be endless decades of investments in wireless networks that can't quite keep up (RBI's 5Mbps target probably sounded great back in the day) or increasing reliance on foreign owned satellite networks.

quickymart

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#3078504 22-May-2023 10:44

evilengineer:

Anyway, onto the wider point. The fibre network should be extended as far as is practicable on equity/nation building basis. Those farmers and rural dwellers helped pay the $1.5Bn seed funding that got the UFB programme off the ground for townies, why shouldn't the townies return the favour for the country folk?

I pay for lots of things in my taxes that don't benefit me either, but that's okay, I don't expect a return on them.

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