Who defines extent of UFB rollout map?

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Bobdn

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Reply # 2117160 31-Oct-2018 02:35

Telecommunications really did take a long time to roll out in NZ, it evolved relatively slowly at first, starting in the 1870s and of course is still evolving. Some interesting reading here.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/telecommunications/page-2

"Subscriber numbers rose from around 50 in 1880 to 25,000 by 1910, and the number of exchanges rose to 14.The first subscribers paid a hefty annual fee (£17 10s.) to rent (not own) their phone. Rental cost had more than halved by 1900, as more people subscribed."

The fibre roll out has happened, as others have said, at a dizzying pace. It really is one of New Zealand's greatest and most successful infrastructure projects. I still can't believe that 87% of New Zealanders will have fibre by 2022. Eventually just about all New Zealanders will have fibre speeds I guess. If it was me I'd be pretty happy with a solid ADSL connection in the meantime, and even that will likely only get better.

One time I gave a Chorus tech who was sitting in his van a box of scorched Almonds as I returned from the Warehouse (their Waikato brand which is actually very good chocolate). You're doing the Lords work, I said, and I meant it.

It's easy to forget how far we've come in such a short space of time.

God bless you, Chorus.

Lastman

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Reply # 2117165 31-Oct-2018 06:18

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Bobdn:
Telecommunications really did take a long time to roll out in NZ, it evolved relatively slowly at first, starting in the 1870s and of course is still evolving. Some interesting reading here.

https://teara.govt.nz/en/telecommunications/page-2

"Subscriber numbers rose from around 50 in 1880 to 25,000 by 1910, and the number of exchanges rose to 14.The first subscribers paid a hefty annual fee (£17 10s.) to rent (not own) their phone. Rental cost had more than halved by 1900, as more people subscribed."

The fibre roll out has happened, as others have said, at a dizzying pace. It really is one of New Zealand's greatest and most successful infrastructure projects. I still can't believe that 87% of New Zealanders will have fibre by 2022. Eventually just about all New Zealanders will have fibre speeds I guess. If it was me I'd be pretty happy with a solid ADSL connection in the meantime, and even that will likely only get better.

One time I gave a Chorus tech who was sitting in his van a box of scorched Almonds as I returned from the Warehouse (their Waikato brand which is actually very good chocolate). You're doing the Lords work, I said, and I meant it.

It's easy to forget how far we've come in such a short space of time.

God bless you, Chorus.

Interestingly, a lot of the early phone cabling was done by the wealthy sheep station owners, in order to be able to contact stock agents. This provided access for a lot of domestic users.

Aredwood

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Reply # 2117474 31-Oct-2018 16:23

raytaylor:
Delphinus:

A fairer costing. If the govt is fronting up to cover 100% of the costs for the denser housing areas (many who don't even want it), why do the rest of us have to pay 10's of thousands to get connected. I'd be more than happy to pay the difference between a typical residential install, and me who has a slightly longer run from the street to my house.

You mean

"govt is fronting up to Loan 100% of the costs"

The LFC still has to break even on that cost

This^^^

When the UFB network was designed, it would have been a safe assumption that virtually every property in the coverage area would either connect to UFB, or keep on paying for a copper connection. As mobile data and calling were far more expensive. So spending lots of money up front on the UFB network wasn't considered a problem. As lower maintenance costs and long term revenue would still mean long term profits for Chorus.

Now cheap cellphone plans, fixed wireless, Power lines companies building their own UFB networks in Chorus areas, etc. Means that the original assumption of long term revenue, no longer applies. And the customers who are on UFB, are more likely to be higher usage customers. As Aunt Maude won't be paying for UFB to keep her Landline phone working. And the corner dairy doesn't need much data to run an EFTPOS terminal and email through orders.

Power lines companies are regulated on revenue. So they simply set their prices at the max allowed. And if they don't need all of that money for network maintenance, they can spend it up on their own UFB network.

So some people now have a choice of different UFB networks to connect to. Which is crazy inefficient investment. When there are lots of people who don't have any UFB planned for their area. The government should have stopped different UFB networks from overbuilding eachover. So that would have forced the power companies to instead only build UFB networks in areas that don't have UFB available or planned. As that would have been a big incentive for the existing UFB networks to extend their coverage areas.

evilengineer

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Reply # 2117674 1-Nov-2018 09:02

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Aredwood:

Power lines companies are regulated on revenue. So they simply set their prices at the max allowed. And if they don't need all of that money for network maintenance, they can spend it up on their own UFB network.

So some people now have a choice of different UFB networks to connect to. Which is crazy inefficient investment. When there are lots of people who don't have any UFB planned for their area. The government should have stopped different UFB networks from overbuilding eachover. So that would have forced the power companies to instead only build UFB networks in areas that don't have UFB available or planned. As that would have been a big incentive for the existing UFB networks to extend their coverage areas.

That's Neo-liberal economics and "market forces" for you.

The alternative would've been a network built by a public sector entity or SoE (lets call it the GPO) without any double-ups that could use the revenue from network access fees to keep extending the network further and further for the next 20-30yrs.

You know, for the public good.

But of course, National were never going to do that.

Just out of interest, have you got any examples of where competing UFB networks are being built on top of each other?

Doesn't make any sense. My understanding is that the fibre companies are going to be forced to provide unbundled access to their networks in the future.

DarkShadow

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Reply # 2117693 1-Nov-2018 09:40

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evilengineer:

Just out of interest, have you got any examples of where competing UFB networks are being built on top of each other?

It happens whenever there's a LFC or another non-Chorus provider.

Some completely random examples, check the address 15 ORUANUI STREET, TAUPO on both the Chorus and Unison websites. Or 10 COGNAC DRIVE, YALDHURST on the Chorus and Enable sites.

wired

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Reply # 2117721 1-Nov-2018 10:10

DarkShadow:

evilengineer:

Just out of interest, have you got any examples of where competing UFB networks are being built on top of each other?

It happens whenever there's a LFC or another non-Chorus provider.

Some completely random examples, check the address 15 ORUANUI STREET, TAUPO on both the Chorus and Unison websites. Or 10 COGNAC DRIVE, YALDHURST on the Chorus and Enable sites.

Unision is a private fibre company and not a LFC, that is, it didn't receive any money from the government to extend their network and they have used their own money to extend into Taupo.

The LFC agreements have clauses in them which prevent overbuilding each other however Chorus (which is not a LFC) is allowed to build network anywhere but they only got money from the government for the UFB areas that they were awarded. No area was awarded to two companies. So the Christchurch overbuild examples are either because Chorus already had fibre there pre-UFB or they have used their own money to challenge the LFC.

There was work done during the early years to identify areas that would result in overbuilding and avoid them as the Government did not want to pay. Probably because they would not get their money back. (UFB is a loan after all and not a grant.)

Tracer

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Reply # 2118048 1-Nov-2018 19:12

Aredwood:

Power lines companies are regulated on revenue. So they simply set their prices at the max allowed. And if they don't need all of that money for network maintenance, they can spend it up on their own UFB network.

So some people now have a choice of different UFB networks to connect to. Which is crazy inefficient investment. When there are lots of people who don't have any UFB planned for their area. The government should have stopped different UFB networks from overbuilding eachover. So that would have forced the power companies to instead only build UFB networks in areas that don't have UFB available or planned. As that would have been a big incentive for the existing UFB networks to extend their coverage areas.

Great example of the kind of unintended distortions caused by over-regulation.

evilengineer:

The alternative would've been a network built by a public sector entity or SoE (lets call it the GPO) without any double-ups that could use the revenue from network access fees to keep extending the network further and further for the next 20-30yrs.

You know, for the public good.

But of course, National were never going to do that.

The alternative actually proposed by the opposition at the time was no UFB at all, as it was deemed a waste of money. I'll take what we ended up with any day. ;)

coffeebaron

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Reply # 2118050 1-Nov-2018 19:21

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Quote (not in exact words) from a tech journalist: "why are we wasting money on fibre when you can get 100Mbps on this new 4G"

Chorus has spent $1.4 billion on making their xDSL broadband network faster. If your still stuck on ADSL or VDSL, why not spend from $150 on a master filter install to make sure you are getting the most out of your connection?
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raytaylor

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Reply # 2118063 1-Nov-2018 20:04

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Having two competing fiber network operators can only be a good thing. Unison for example rolled out a basic network in hawkes bay, taupo and rotorua to proove they could do it, but chorus was awarded the funding for most of that area. Unison however had invested too deep and just had to keep going.

The result now is with many ISPs dissatisfied with chorus wait times (got up to 6 months at one stage in napier, i was waiting over 12 months), we can have a unison team around to connect the customer the next day. I know of orders that have been placed with two networks and whoever gets it installed first has won the connection. Unison provides a valuable service keeping chorus in line with their obligations and what the market expects.

The fees set by the government funding agreement are maximums for specific services. There isnt anything stopping LFCs from lowering their prices or offering alternative plans to retailers.

Unison lowered their pricing and basically matched chorus at the wholesale level in response to the competition that chorus provided. They can both compete on price, coverage, and service quality to win the business of the retail ISPs. Chorus however cant raise its prices for specific services or connection profiles.

Its normal to go into a business office in napier and see a unison ONT next to a chorus ONT.

I would also say that crown infrastructure are both a blessing and a burden. They are not a placid government department like MBIE in previous rounds under labor that just gave out grants.
CFH are run by some cut-throat lean mean business accountants and although we get lighter supervision compared to a UFB LFC, and some times it feels like selling your soul to the devil, i have to say the tax payer got a very good deal when national set them up. I kinda feel bad for the home builders- the taxpayers are going to get the better side of the deal because CFH are much tougher negotiators than MBIE ever was.

Ray Taylor
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quickymart

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Reply # 2119353 4-Nov-2018 09:55

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coffeebaron: Quote (not in exact words) from a tech journalist: "why are we wasting money on fibre when you can get 100Mbps on this new 4G"

You mean alleged tech journalist, people who know what they're talking about wouldn't say that

Lastman

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Reply # 2119416 4-Nov-2018 12:43

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It comes down to a question of what the fibre gets used for, too. I can stream a couple of hd streams on my rural dsl line so “what more could you need” might legitimately be asked?

It’s whether applications that use much higher levels of bandwidth become commonplace.

Services tend to target the mainstream so lower capacity ones may struggle as was the case with dial up.

hio77

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Reply # 2119640 4-Nov-2018 21:43

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coffeebaron: Quote (not in exact words) from a tech journalist: "why are we wasting money on fibre when you can get 100Mbps on this new 4G"

Shhh we will become australia if you keep saying that!

raytaylor:

Having two competing fiber network operators can only be a good thing. Unison for example rolled out a basic network in hawkes bay, taupo and rotorua to proove they could do it, but chorus was awarded the funding for most of that area. Unison however had invested too deep and just had to keep going.

The result now is with many ISPs dissatisfied with chorus wait times (got up to 6 months at one stage in napier, i was waiting over 12 months), we can have a unison team around to connect the customer the next day. I know of orders that have been placed with two networks and whoever gets it installed first has won the connection. Unison provides a valuable service keeping chorus in line with their obligations and what the market expects.

too true, we use unison where chorus isn't already installed. it works out very seamless and very well.

end of the day, the customer doesn't care who provides the fibre, they care how fast, easy and simple the installation process is.

I will say it's been good to see things change a bit; Chorus are doing massive work with their who one day installs, street in a week etc processes that make it so much better

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