New Zealand operator Spark has announced plans to move as many customers as possible off old copper broadband and onto the newer broadband technologies, fibre and wireless broadband. This project is dubbed ‘Upgrade New Zealand’.
As part of this project, Spark says it will first accelerate take up of fibre. The operator is trialing new deployment methods that aim to simplify the process of installing fibre in individual homes and improve the efficiency of the roll out of fibre across New Zealand. Second, Spark is encouraging customers who are low to moderate data users and currently have copper broadband to move onto more reliable and easy to install wireless broadband technology.
Spark and Ultrafast Fibre (UFF) are trialing a new scheme that aims to enable residential users to install fibre for their broadband service. The scheme involves upgrading all homes in the same street that want Spark fibre broadband, in just one week – with customers being able to select a specific day within that week for their fibre installation.
This new approach is designed as an improvement of the current process whereby customers need to place their order with their service provider (such as Spark) and then go into the queue for the local fibre company to carry out the installation. The current process involves a great deal of ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ between the customer, their service provider, the fibre company and the contracting technicians who actually carry out the installation. It can take several weeks or longer for installations to take place, Spark says. The ‘Street in a week’ trial with Ultrafast Fibre thus aims to boost the take-up of fibre by Spark customers by streamlining the installation process.
The initial trial aims to upgrade a neighbourhood of 400 households to fibre, in selected streets in Nawton, Grandview Heights and Western Heights in Hamilton, in mid-November. Spark and Ultrafast Fibre plan to take the feedback from this trial and then use it to scale up the approach for further communities. Spark also plans to cooperate with other LFCs to expand this approach to other communities.
Spark is offering wireless broadband to customers with low to medium data usage, who currently have a copper broadband connection. Wireless broadband uses Spark’s 4G mobile network to provide home broadband, without the need for a copper line connection. Essentially, customers who live in the wireless broadband ‘footprint’ (an area with a strong 4G mobile signal) receive their broadband and phone line to a modem in their home over the mobile network – and then the modem allows them to access the internet on their computer or mobile device using Wi-Fi in the same way as they would with a copper or fibre connection.
Spark also reports that the 4G network continues to expand the reach of Spark broadband – 150,000 NZ homes that previously had no access to copper or fibre broadband can now sign up to wireless broadband. In total, over 1.6 million homes and businesses can access wireless broadband. In the last three months, wireless broadband has become available to 40,000 more addresses.
