New Zealand’s Chorus plans 1Gbps wholesale fiber service

New Zealand fixed line operator Chorus has revealed plans to extend 1Gbps wholesale fiber services across its entire share of the Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) network from next month.

The operator will make wholesale residential and SME broadband services available nationwide on any UFB connection within Chorus’ UFB rollout area.

The UFB is New Zealand’s national fiber broadband network, designed to cover 80% of the New Zealand population by 2022. Chorus won 70% of the contracts to deploy the fiber network from Crown Fibre Holdings, the government-owned company set up to manage the project.

Chorus said it plans to offer residential wholesale gigabit broadband services to retailers at an introductory price of NZ$60 ($44) per month – increasing to $65 per month after June 2017 – and a business service for NZ$75 per month.

These prices still require approval from Crown Fibre Holdings, but if this approval does not come by the end of September services will still launch on a trial basis.

With current technology Chorus said the gigabit broadband service will offer real-world downlink speeds of between 900Mbps and 970Mbs and uplink speeds of up to 500Mbps. This compares to an average download speed across Chorus’ networks of just 35Mbps.

Chorus began offering Gigabit broadband services in the city of Dunedin in February 2015.

“We are delighted that other fiber providers have joined Chorus in championing gigabit residential and business services,” Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe said.

“Making New Zealand a true ‘Gignation’, beyond the 5,000-plus connections we have in Dunedin, should see us catapulted up the league tables of broadband speed rankings and reinforce the high quality of the broadband infrastructure we’re rolling out.”