Chorus has today announced plans to enable more Dunedin residents, businesses and tourists to take full advantage of the sponsored gigabit broadband services available across the city after winning Gigatown last year.
An accelerated build schedule will see Dunedin’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) communal build completed nearly two years sooner in December 2017.
According to the telco, this means every property within the Chorus UFB footprint will have access to the gigabit broadband service won last year.
On completion of the UFB build in Dunedin, Chorus will then extend the sponsored gigabit broadband service offer for a further 12-month period.
For Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe, this will ensure residents and businesses alike have a good opportunity to take full advantage of gigabit broadband’s low latency and incredible capacity and speed at entry level retail fibre pricing.
Speaking at a reception held at the Otago Museum on Wednesday tonight, Ratcliffe believes Dunedin has an “incredible opportunity” in taking full advantage and ownership of the gigabit broadband infrastructure Chorus has built and is continuing to build.
“It should be the engine for Dunedin to drive investment and job growth in the city while education, healthcare and community services all benefit,” he says.
“The city has the opportunity to steal a march on others to become New Zealand’s - and the Southern Hemisphere’s - first true smart city.
“I’m delighted to see Dunedin taking such a strong leadership position with today’s launch of GigCity Dunedin. We’re keen to see it realise the full power of truly high-speed, affordable and accessible broadband.”
In addition, Ratcliffe says the Octagon’s new public access GigCity Dunedin Wi-Fi service launched this week is up to 50-times faster than the current service.
Powered by Chorus’ gigabit fibre broadband, Ratcliffe claims the service is one of the fastest public access Wi-Fi networks in the world and it’s available to all, free-to-access and without the requirement to register.
The new Wi-Fi network was developed and tested by a partnership between Chorus, Dunedin City Council, the Digital Community Trust and Unifone.