UFB - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

  • ComCom launches study into demand side of UFB

    The Commerce Commission has launched a study into demand side issues that may impede the uptake of services that are offered as part of the government's $1.5 billion Ultra Fast Broadband network

  • UFB a 'stitch-up job': de Salis

    Ultra fast broadband plans to date are a “very dicey stitch-up job between Telecom, Vodafone and the Ministry of Economic Development,” claims DataLight director Roger de Salis.

  • Telecom/Vodafone rural bid is open access and rational - Ratcliffe

    In the second part of Computerworld's Q and A interview with Telecom's executive lead on UFB and RBI, Mark Ratcliffe discusses the telco's controversial bid for the government's Rural Broadband Initiative. Telecom has partnered with Vodafone in a joint bid and is currently negotiating with the MED on rolling out a fixed line/wireless solution.

  • Ultra Fast Broadband on hold?

    InternetNZ CEO Vikram Kumar says its organisation has heard that the government may call a halt the Ultra Fast Broadband initiative following last week’s earthquake in Christchurch.

  • CityLink revenue contributes to TeamTalk result

    TeamTalk, owner of Wellington's CityLink fibre provider, has reported a net proft of $2.3 million for the six months to December 31, a 21 percent increase on the 2009 second half-year result.
    Revenue from CityLink contributed significantly to the result, providing $6.8 million of the group's $15.6 million revenue for the half-year, up from $4 million the previous July-December period. The firm's radio division provided the rest of the revenue.
    TeamTalk acquired a majority stake in CityLink in 2006, and later upped its ownership to 100 per cent.
    The report accompanying the result notes: "The regulatory haze that has befuddled the telecommunications industry for the last two years is slowly clearing. The overall shape of the government’s policies in rural telecommunications, urban broadband and the cellular market is starting to emerge. Broadly speaking these policies will increase the penetration of generic broadband products but leave the markets for TeamTalk’s specialised products largely unaffected.

  • Regulatory holiday, secrecy attacked on telecomms reforms

    The 10-year period of “regulatory forbearance” for Local Fibre Companies supplying the Ultra Fast Broadband network will be the prime target of submitters on the Telecommunications Amendment Bill, if they follow the advice of convenors of a joint InternetNZ/TUANZ seminar on the Bill held in Wellington this week.

  • Digital divide an issue for UFB rollout: CFH

    An equity provision should be part of the Ultra Fast Broadband rollout to ensure poor, urban communities aren’t last in line for faster broadband, says Russell Burt, principal of Pt England School in Auckland.

  • Microsoft NZ exec calls for a national vision for UFB

    Microsoft New Zealand national technology officer Mark Rees says the government has no vision as to how the Ultra Fast Broadband network will be used, and a strategy needs to be developed in order to maximise the benefits for the country.

  • Telecomms Amendment Bill enshrines 'regulatory holiday'

    The proposed 10-year “regulatory holiday” for participants in the Ultra-fast broadband (UFB) project, first noted by Computerworld in July, is enshrined in the Telecommunications (TSO, Broadband and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, which was introduced on November 23 and is set for its first reading in Parliament this week.

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