Fairfax Digital CEO named to NZ Government's 'NBN Co' board

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 19 November 2009 08:32

IT Industry - Strategy

The CEO of Fairfax Digital, Jack Matthews, has been appointed to the board of the New Zealand Government-owned company, Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH), set up to manage the Government's planned $NZ1.5b investment in a national FTTH network.

Matthews is a US native with New Zealand citizenship. Announcing his appointment, communications and IT minister, Stephen Joyce, said: "Matthews was also the driving force behind the roll out of Saturn's (now TelstraClear's) hybrid fibre-coax cable network in Wellington and Christchurch. [He] brings an end-user focus and a strategic understanding of digital media to the board. His expertise will be a welcome complement to the commercial and technical skills this board currently provides."

Earlier this month Joyce announced the initial five members of the CFH board: Simon Allen, former chair of NZX, and founder and former managing director of ABN AMRO New Zealand, was  appointed chairman. The other appointees were Andrew Body, Miriam Dean QC, Dr Murray Milner and Keith Tempest. Their appointments are for three years.

The government aims to get fibre to 75 percent of New Zealand premises over 10 years , with partial government funding. It is seeking expressions of interest from Local Fibre Companies (LFCs) that will, in joint ventures with CFH,  to rollout and manage the fibre networks in specific areas. Each LFC will be required to sell access to Layer 1 services and, if the LFC chooses to do so, sell Layer 2 services over its network and must connect any and all customers in its agreed coverage area seeking access. The LFC will take a progressively greater share of its JV as it connects customers.