Ultra-Fast Broadband

The Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative is a New Zealand Government program of building fibre-to-the-home networks covering 80% of the population by 2022. It is a public–private partnership of the government with four companies with total investment of NZ$1.7 billion.

The Ultra-Fast Broadband project plans to provide speeds of at least 100Mbit/s downstream and 50Mbit/s upstream, though upgradable to 10 times that speed.

It aims to have optical fibre available to all schools and public hospitals, most private health facilities and most businesses by 2015. Urban and suburban residential areas have fibre deployed gradually, with new development areas being a high priority.

Initially, the plan was to have fibre within reach of 75% of the population by 2019 with an investment of $1.35 billion. In 2014, the government announced an increased funding of $152m to $210m, the target was expanded to 80%, and the finish date pushed out to 2022.

Crown Fibre Holdings Limited (CFH) is a Crown-owned company set up to manage the project. CFH has contracted four companies to deploy fibre network.

The main partner is Chorus, which won 70% of the roll out area. Chorus was part of incumbent telco Telecom but was split off into a separate company in order to participate in this project. CFH will invest NZ$929 million directly in Chorus with 50% being non-voting shares and 50% interest free loans.

There are also three Local Fibre Companies (LFC). These are 50% owned by Crown Fibre and 50% by the local electricity lines company or local government. They are:

The technology used is gigabit-capable passive optical network (GPON) for residential customers, and point to point for large businesses. Dark fibre is also available.

Chorus or the LFCs wholesale services to ISPs, who in turn offer services to their customers. There are 89 retail providers offering UFB services.

The contract between CFH and the fibre network companies specifies that there are to be wholesale residential plans of 30Mbit/s download with 10Mbit/s upload and 100Mbit/s download with 50Mbit/s upload.

The fibre network companies also offer other residential plans. The LFCs and Chorus in Dunedin offer a gigabit residential service of 1Gbit/s download and 500Mbit/s upload. Chorus offers residential plans of up to 200Mbit/s symmetrical in its other cities. Business gigabit services are available in all UFB areas. As of February 2015^[update], unlimited UFB plans start from $79.

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