NZ Gov't fleshes out FTTH plans

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 06:04

IT Industry - Strategy

The telecoms reforms announced yesterday by the Australian Government have been hailed as the biggest change in telecommunications in two decades, and the same claims are being made about the New Zealand Government's announcement today of its version of Australia's NBN: a $NZ1.5b plan to take fibre to most New Zealand homes over the next six years.

"This ushers in the biggest and most fundamental change to telecommunications in New Zealand since the privatisation of Telecom 20 years ago," said Ernie Newman CEO of the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ).

The plan was first unveiled as a pre-election policy by National Party leader and now prime minister John Key in a lengthy speech to a party conference in April 2008 as a counter to broadband network plans of the then Labour Government and Telecom New Zealand. In February 2009, soon after gaining Government the Nationals scrapped Labor's plan and promised to flesh out its alternative "soon".

Key highlights of the plan, announced today by communications and IT minister, Stephen Joyce, include:
- Government investment directed to an open access, wholesale-only, passive fibre network infrastructure;
- A new Crown-owned investment company (Crown Fibre Holdings), which will be operational by October, to carry out the government's partner selection process and manage the government's investment in fibre networks;
- Crown Fibre Holdings and each partner will establish a commercial vehicle, a 'Local Fibre Company' (LFC), to deploy fibre network infrastructure and provide access to dark fibre products and, optionally, certain active wholesale Layer 2 services;
- The Government will consider national and regionally-focused proposals, as well as consortium and proposals aggregating any combination of LFC regions;
- LFCs will be required from day one to be open networks facilitating access to their infrastructure on an equivalent basis to all users. No party that operates as a telecommunications retailer will be able to control and LFC;
- The rollout programme will cover an initial 25 urban areas and will be expanded to 33 to be based on the largest urban areas (by population in 2021).

Joyce said that: "Already a number of companies have shown interest in the government's broadband initiative. Now it's time to get on with finding the right partners to build these networks."

The government has already, in the May budget, provided an initial $NZ290m for the $NZ1.5b project including $NZ6 million for the Crown Fibre Investment Company. And last week Joyce announced details of plans for rural fibre at a cost of $300m, in addition the $1.5b for the main urban fibre plan. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27616/127/

According to Newman, "[The announcement] takes into account most of the key issues raised in submissions, and sets a timetable with milestones. It is an excellent blueprint on which to build.

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