Chorus planning to abandon all copper in 10 years

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Chorus planning to abandon all copper in 10 years

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

wired

187 posts

Master Geek

#3079677 25-May-2023 21:48

The latest rural UFB extensions have tended to be as a grant from government because the premises density is too sparse to be economic under the previous interest free loan regime.

The original RBI project was also based on providing grants.

I’m not sure where government gets this money from as the telecommunications development levy that everyone pays isn’t that big.

Hatch

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Hatch (affiliate link).

herberto286

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#3089053 12-Jun-2023 14:29

Does this mean if I'm on a copper connection that Chorus will have to pay for a rural fibre install when they want to boot me off copper in a decade?

quickymart

13768 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3089068 12-Jun-2023 14:35

No, you would probably look for another solution (eg, wireless) or pay for fibre yourself - but there's a possibility the latter could be subsidised in some way.

evilengineer

466 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3089931 14-Jun-2023 09:56

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the legislation only allow them to turn off the copper in areas where fibre is available as an alternative?

Or are they allowed to count RBI/Cell tower coverage as an "acceptable" alternative to copper?

In any event, I can see Chorus copping some serious flack in semi-rural areas close to a current fibre boundary if they turn off the copper and the only alternatives for a significant number of people are a suddenly massively oversubscribed RBI tower, a local WISP who's line of sight may or may not be obstructed by trees you have no control over, or an expensive Starlink subscription.

There are quite a lot of people in the "stale donut" still using poor to middling ADSL connections that run back to the same cabinet/exchange that's primarily serving a fibre footprint area.

Maybe explains why they're keen to get this 90% coverage number.

At least get the fibre boundaries to more or less line up with the old exchange boundaries to make it easier to turn stuff off at the edges of town.

DS248

1691 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3089944 14-Jun-2023 10:52

We are in exactly the situation described above; ie. in a semi-rural area close to a current fibre boundary.

I don't know what the legislation allows them to do re cutting off copper in areas where fibre is not available as an alternative.

But I do know from bad personal experience to date that the Spark cell wireless service is NOT an "acceptable" alternative, at least where we are. Despite having excellent signal strength and direct line of site view of the cell tower we are still having frequent ongoing dropouts of the download connection. Upload is much more stable.

Spark phone support has been useless and difficult (hours on the phone with nil result). Posting details in a separate thread here (https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=39&topicid=302863) has also achieved nothing.

tim0001

261 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3089977 14-Jun-2023 12:39

Fortunately the rules are “Chorus can only stop supplying copper services where households can access the same services over the fibre network. In areas where fibre is not currently available Chorus must continue to supply copper services.”

Other than performance considerations with 4G fixed wireless, there also affordability considerations. Locally we’ve just had a RGC tower installed, but the costs with most retailers is pretty high. For example, if you used 330GB (the 2021 national average) the monthly bill with Spark Rural Wireless would be $156. If you used 600GB (the max allowed by Spark) it would be $216. I don’t know anyone who has signed up for FWA locally

quickymart

13768 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#3090057 14-Jun-2023 16:05

You can probably expect that document to be updated as eventually all copper will be gone.

tim0001

261 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3090066 14-Jun-2023 17:01

quickymart:

You can probably expect that document to be updated as eventually all copper will be gone.

As it happens, ComCom are just kicking off a study to "establish a baseline view of telecommunications services in areas where fibre is not available (for convenience, we call these ‘rural areas’)." Perhaps they should read this GZ thread!

myfullflavour

896 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Full Flavour

#3090120 14-Jun-2023 20:15

tim0001:
Fortunately the rules are “Chorus can only stop supplying copper services where households can access the same services over the fibre network. In areas where fibre is not currently available Chorus must continue to supply copper services.”

Other than performance considerations with 4G fixed wireless, there also affordability considerations. Locally we’ve just had a RGC tower installed, but the costs with most retailers is pretty high. For example, if you used 330GB (the 2021 national average) the monthly bill with Spark Rural Wireless would be $156. If you used 600GB (the max allowed by Spark) it would be $216. I don’t know anyone who has signed up for FWA locally

We do a $90/month unlimited deal if connecting ya off a RCG tower.

evilengineer

466 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3090194 15-Jun-2023 08:57

tim0001:

quickymart:

You can probably expect that document to be updated as eventually all copper will be gone.

As it happens, ComCom are just kicking off a study to "establish a baseline view of telecommunications services in areas where fibre is not available (for convenience, we call these ‘rural areas’)." Perhaps they should read this GZ thread!

There's a few interesting thinks in terms of reference documents for this study:

"The UFB programme has been successful in delivering high-speed connectivity to urban areas, but consumers living in rural and remote areas experience mixed outcomes when it comes to connectivity choice, performance and price, as fibre is unlikely to be built out to those locations."

Which is a bit, "no s**t Sherlock".

And:

"We anticipate this work will also be useful for a separate piece of work, commencing later calendar year, relating to the review of regulated copper services, which we need to complete by 31 December 2025."

They could do worse than start by defining what think actually counts as "broadband" in the 2020s and 2030s as part of both of these studies.

It's certainly way more than the original RBI target of 5Mbps, 25-30Mbps is a bare minimum and I'd say it should probably be at least 50Mbps+ right now without even thinking about the future.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4