Chorus Limited
 |
|
| Public company | |
| Traded as | NZX: CNU |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 2011; 6 years ago |
| Headquarters | Wellington, New Zealand |
|
Area served
|
New Zealand |
|
Key people
|
Kate McKenzie (CEO) |
| Products | Telecommunications, fibre optic infrastructure |
|
Number of employees
|
963 (December 2016) |
| Website | chorus |
Chorus is a provider of telecommunications infrastructure throughout New Zealand. It is listed on the NZX stock exchange and is in the NZX 50 Index. It is the owner of the majority of telephone lines and exchange equipment in New Zealand. It is also responsible for building approximately 70% of the new fibre optic Ultra-Fast Broadband network. It has received a government subsidy of $929 million to build the new fibre network.
The company was demerged from Telecom New Zealand in 2011 (now Spark), as a condition of winning the majority of the contracts for the Government's Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative. By law, it cannot sell directly to consumers, instead it provides wholesale services to retailers.
Most of the telephone infrastructure in New Zealand is owned by Chorus. As of January 2014[update], Chorus can provide ADSL service to 97.3% and VDSL2 (up to 70/10 Mbit/s) service to 62.4% of its copper phone lines.
Contrary to the usual practice overseas, most connections are at full speed, instead plans differ in the amount of data included. As DSL is sensitive to distance, the closer the customer is to the equipment, the faster the connections. Chorus has implemented a fibre-to-the-node (also known as "cabinetisation") project to bring the equipment closer to the user, so 91% of the lines are able to access an ADSL2+ connection of 10Mbit/s or more.
The copper loop is unbundled, so operators like Vodafone and Vocus can install their own equipment at telephone exchanges and just rent the copper line from Chorus. As of December 2013[update], 130,000 (7%) lines are unbundled.
Chorus is responsible for installing the majority of the government's Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) fibre. UFB is planned to connect about 85% of the population to 1Gbps services throughout New Zealand, with a particular focus on schools and hospitals in the early years of the programme.
...
Wikipedia