Telecom signs wholesale agreement with Northpower Fibre

Northland at the forefront of fibre deployments

Telecom has signed a wholesale agreement with Northpower Fibre to deliver fibre services to the Whangarei region. Northpower Fibre is the government partner responsible for delivering a fibre network in Whangarei as part of the ultra-fast broadband initiative.

Northpower CEO Darren Mason says the project is a major opportunity for Northland to lead from the front as the first region in New Zealand to embrace the opportunities that ultra-fast broadband brings.

“An open access fibre network like ours is a huge enabler and will be as great tool for businesses, schools, hospitals and individuals,” he says. “Our partnership with retail service providers such as Telecom/Gen-i allows us to take advantage of this opportunity.”

Acting Telecom CEO Chris Quin says Telecom is working closely with Northpower Fibre to integrate its new input products into the telco’s national, end-to-end fibre-based network.

Telecom has now signed with all UFB providers – Chorus, Enable Networks, Ultrafast Fibre and now Northpower. A Telecom spokesperson says they are currently trialling Fibre to the Home, but he couldn’t say when residential offers would be introduced into the market.

Meanwhile Northpower Fibre plans to have taken fibre past the doors of nearly 20,000 premises in and around Whangarei by June 2014.

Northland is suddenly at the forefront of fibre deployments.

Taitokerau Networks recently completed its fibre optic network from Auckland to Whangarei.

The company is owned by partners Te Runanga o Whaingaroa, Te Runanga o Ngati Whatua and Te Runanga o Te Rarawa, with Wellington telco Datalight Limited as the general partner. Crews have laid more than 165 kms of cable and a significant number of access pits to enable connection for customers along the cable route.

Datalight managing director Roger MacDonald says the network will deliver 1 Gbps-plus speeds with extremely low latency over 210 kilometres of network in a single span.

A spokesman for the Taitokerau iwi behind the network, Haami Piripi, chair of Te Runanga o Te Rarawa, says: “The build marks a historical milestone for New Zealand with the creation of the first iwi-owned inter-city long-haul network in the country, and has provided a sound basis for the development of an ongoing productive relationship with the companies involved for other projects throughout Taitokerau to stimulate the regional economy.”

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Tags telecomNorthpower Fibre

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