Chorus has agreed to wholesale several new ultrafast broadband plans from January that will offer faster download speeds at lower prices. It will also increase the speed of its entry-level UFB plan, which wholesales for $37.50 a month. The move follows concerns by internet providers that the company’s current entry-level UFB plan, which provides download
I was talking to Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe about the messy, embarrassing Transfield situation on Friday afternoon when he asked me if I’d heard of the Gigatown competition. I said yes, and that when I tweeted about it, a number of people replied wondering if suburbs of Auckland or Wellington could be in the running (Mt Eden Village, anyone?).
Transfield Services says it has paid the money it owed to New Zealand subcontractors working on the ultrafast broadband initiative. David Jamieson, spokesman for the Australian engineering firm, said all outstanding payments were direct-credited to its contractors’ accounts at midnight on Friday. The company acknowledged last week that it had fallen behind paying dozens of
With neither Transfield nor Chorus nor the government offering substantive comment on Transfield’s payment problem, Labour ICT spokeswoman Clare Curran is filling the vacuum. “Hundreds of workers laying out broadband fibre around Hamilton, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Nelson and Rotorua have not been paid for weeks. They have been told by Transfield Services, which contracts directly
Research firm IDC says the government has done a good job of balancing everyone’s interests in its telecommunications review discussion document. “Many look back and wish the government had invested in better public transport during the sixties and seventies, but at the time such investments were deemed unnecessary or too expensive,” says Peter Wise, research
Telecom unbundling key to regulator’s copper conundrum Telecom Corp’s dominance in the country’s retail broadband market and how it chooses to unbundle services on Chorus’ ageing copper network are central to the conundrum facing the Commerce Commission. The regulator has backed away from imposing a sharp cut to the regulated price Chorus can charge wholesale
Review of the Telecommunications Act The Government has announced plans to maintain artificially high copper prices, effectively placing a levy of up to $150 a year on consumers to support the fibre rollout. This move is to ensure that the price consumers currently pay for copper based broadband services is kept at least as high
Vodafone says it will defend its new advertising campaign after rival Telecom applied for a High Court injunction. Telecom spokesman Andrew Pirie said this morning the company believes aspects of Vodafone’s SuperNet advertising was “misleading to consumers and is therefore in breach of the Fair Trading Act”. Telecom wants the campaign either changed or pulled,
