Chorus’ free upgrade to 50Mbps for entry level fibre customers

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pjamieson

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#207687 8-Jan-2017 21:47

Published 02/12/2016

In celebration of its fifth birthday as a standalone company, Chorus has today announced a free upgrade for the 85,000 residential fibre broadband customers on Chorus’ entry-level 30Mbps plan, increasing it to 50Mbps.

Chorus will work with the broadband retailers to migrate their customers as quickly as possible to the new plan speed. It is expected the migration would complete early in the New Year, with all customers on a Chorus entry level fibre plan then seeing their downstream speed increase to 50Mbps. The 50Mbps plan will then become Chorus’ entry level fibre plan.

Fibre broadband customers will not need to do anything to take advantage of the free upgrade. Chorus will work with the retailers behind-the-scenes at the network layer to manage the transition. Existing fibre-compatible modems will already support the new plan speeds.

The five years since the establishment of Chorus has seen monumental changes in broadband performance across New Zealand. For instance, in 2011,

the average downstream speed on the Chorus network was less than 10Mbps, it’s now nearly 35Mbps
unlimited broadband plans – those without restrictive data caps – were almost non-existent, today uncapped plans make up more than half of all residential broadband plans
a typical home on Chorus’ network used 20GB a month of internet data, today, with the widespread take up of HD online TV services like Netflix, this has increased to more than 120GB
Not everyone has managed to keep up with the change of pace in broadband improvements over the last five years. While about 400,000 have moved to the best possible technology – either VDSL or fibre – Chorus analysis shows approximately another 400,000 connections could be on better broadband today.

Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe said the time was right for the next step change in broadband performance across New Zealand.

"Five years ago it was hard to predict the impact fibre broadband would have on our connected lives at home and in work. While we knew fibre was set to be a game changer, at the time the entry level 30Mbps plan looked more than ample.

“Today, New Zealand has the highest rate of growth in fibre uptake in the world and a voracious appetite for data. The changes brought on by how we now expect to lead our connected lives led Chorus in its decision to reset the baseline of what we should expect from our broadband.”

Anyone seeing this from any RSP's yet?

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#1700355 8-Jan-2017 21:59

"It is expected the migration would complete early in the New Year"

Depends on how you define early :)

Aredwood

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#1700389 8-Jan-2017 23:51

Is the upload speed increasing as well, or is it remaining at 10mbit?

pjamieson

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#1700392 9-Jan-2017 00:50

Aredwood:

Is the upload speed increasing as well, or is it remaining at 10mbit?

Yes still 10, but right performing (50+/10+).

BarTender

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#1700399 9-Jan-2017 06:06

And are business customers on 30/10 (BS2) or 33/11 (BS2a) getting upgraded?
Did Chorus give the RSPs warning this was going to happen?
Did Chorus also talk with the other LFCs or CFH saying they were planning to do this?
And my personal favorite. Did Chorus create a new product in the portal so RSPs can order 55/11 BS2a and then automatically move everyone on BS2 30/10 and BS2a 33/11 onto this new product. Or in the Chorus portal and the B2B do RSPs still order 30-10-2.5-2.5 and magically get 55/11?

Jedsdad

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#1700411 9-Jan-2017 08:28

I just checked and I am getting about 52Mbps download on both NPerf and Ookla, testing to Auckland Servers

I am in Takanini.

I guess it depends where in the country you are too, and how fast the roll out is.

Jase2985

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#1700477 9-Jan-2017 11:45

Actually come to think about it my dad said he got upgraded recently to 50/10, he is with orcon in Auckland.

pjamieson

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#1700508 9-Jan-2017 13:21

BarTender: And are business customers on 30/10 (BS2) or 33/11 (BS2a) getting upgraded?
Did Chorus give the RSPs warning this was going to happen?
Did Chorus also talk with the other LFCs or CFH saying they were planning to do this?
And my personal favorite. Did Chorus create a new product in the portal so RSPs can order 55/11 BS2a and then automatically move everyone on BS2 30/10 and BS2a 33/11 onto this new product. Or in the Chorus portal and the B2B do RSPs still order 30-10-2.5-2.5 and magically get 55/11?

I believe it's all 30/10's and the plan will still be called 30/10 as that has to exist - it will just be almost double the DL speed. It's all over to RSP's to do their bit now. I think some have and some haven't.

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hio77

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#1700526 9-Jan-2017 15:02

Did Chorus give the RSPs warning this was going to happen?

Informer 428

#include <std_disclaimer>

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BarTender

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#1700718 10-Jan-2017 08:44

pjamieson:I believe it's all 30/10's and the plan will still be called 30/10 as that has to exist - it will just be almost double the DL speed. It's all over to RSP's to do their bit now. I think some have and some haven't.

So it will always be called "Residential 30-10" in the portal and the B2B as that "has to exist". No plans to update the product to refelect reality? What happens if Chorus decides to change it's mind and decrease the speed back to the CFH regulated 30/10? What would happen then? As that is still the product ordered and seen everywhere in the Chorus Portal when looking up the service. So just because it's now magically 50 there isn't any indication of that speed in any Chorus system.

hio77:

Did Chorus give the RSPs warning this was going to happen?

Informer 428

And informer 422 which came out the week before saying the change would be Early 2017.

I believe Chorus did the change during the week 12-16th December in production.

Here's an idea, if Chorus wanted to launch a new product then actually launch a new product and call it "Evolve 50-10-2.5-2.5 Residential" at the same price as 30-10. Then give RSPs notification of more than 2 weeks that Chorus are going to move all customers on Evolve 1 (30/10) and Evolve 30-10-2.5-2.5 (33/11) over to that new product and not just do it before brownout over Christmas. Hopefully also talk with CFH and the other LFCs about the new product. Since "It's all over to RSP's to do their bit now. I think some have and some haven't." and that attitude stinks in my personal opinion since this change only impacts Residential Chorus customers (not Business ones on 30/10) and now means that the RSPs have to have a different QoS policy only for Chorus Residential 30/10 customers vs everyone else even though in every system Chorus has it still shows up as 30/10.

Even after the network component is done and customers now get 50/10 in speedtest they will still be receiving a bill saying they are paying for a 30/10 service. So the billing and online experience when they order UFB will need to change. The larger ISPs who have nationwide UFB coverage with all the LFCs will also need to change their online journey to know if the customers are a Residential customer in a Chorus area or not so that they will offer 50/10 rather than 30/10.

Then just wait for the other LFCs to follow suit with 50/10 Residential (or perhaps they will do business too), and rinse and repeat.

I'm sure there could have been a worse way to manage this, but I am struggling to see how.

Dairyxox

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#1700873 10-Jan-2017 12:56

Is Chorus the LFC for Rotorua?

I hope this encourages others to follow suit.

hio77

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#1700899 10-Jan-2017 13:49

Dairyxox:

Is Chorus the LFC for Rotorua?

I hope this encourages others to follow suit.

for which RSP?

Spark will now do unison in Rotorua unless Chorus is already installed.

#include <std_disclaimer>

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Dairyxox

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#1700903 10-Jan-2017 13:56

hio77:

Dairyxox:

Is Chorus the LFC for Rotorua?

I hope this encourages others to follow suit.

for which RSP?

Spark will now do unison in Rotorua unless Chorus is already installed.

My parents are with trustpower.

hio77

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#1700914 10-Jan-2017 14:16

Dairyxox:

My parents are with trustpower.

Chorus most likely unless trustpower have taken up unison too, i can only speak for the ISPs i have heard are using both.

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MattR

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#1704629 17-Jan-2017 12:15

pjamieson:

Anyone seeing this from any RSP's yet?

My father-in-law's 2degrees is now running at 50Mbps.

My wife's cousin's Trustpower is still at 30Mbps.

Both Auckland north shore.

jonb

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#1793018 1-Jun-2017 11:32

Just dropped back from 100/20 to 30/10, and pleasantly surprised when my speedtest was 50/10. Had a quick look at broadbandcompare and most of the ISPs are still advertising 30/10, will that be for simplicity due to other LFCs on different base plans?

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