NZ prioritises small telcos over Telecom NZ
Although Telecom NZ has made it to a shortlist of 14 partners for the country's Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative, it has missed out on being one of the companies with which the government's fibre company Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) intends to negotiate first.
The broadband initiative aims to provide fast broadband to 75 per cent of the country within 10 years.
Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) has initially elected to commence negotiating binding offers with regional fibre providers: NorthPower (covering the Whangarei area); the Central North Island Fibre Consortium (covering Hamilton, Tauranga, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Tokoroa, New Plymouth, Hawera and Wanganui); and Alpine Energy (covering Timaru).
"These three parties have displayed the best proposals including a combination of access prices, funding provisions, industry experience and financial backing," CFH chairman Simon Allen said today.
Telecom said that the three companies to be involved in initial negotiations only represented around 12 per cent of the population of New Zealand. Telecom's proposal was national, covering all UFB and Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) areas, the company said.
Although it had missed out on being a part of those negotiations, Telecom had been shortlisted for all regions.
Its bid would see the company structurally separated and the intended 75 per cent coverage achieved by 2019. It also involved integrating the UFB initiative into the government's RBI to "extend the reach of fibre into rural areas", as well as regulatory reform and legislative changes.
"We recognise that our bid is more complicated than those of other bidders, and that Crown Fibre Holdings does not have a mandate in the areas of RBI, regulatory reform and legislative change," Paul Reynolds, Telecom CEO said in a statement.
Telecom was open to partnership with other fibre asset owners, the company said, including those parties which had been prioritised for negotiation.
"We continue to believe that a national solution is the most efficient and effective way of delivering fibre to New Zealand while avoiding duplication and waste," Reynolds said.
Crown Fibre Holdings is set to put forward recommendations for binding offers in October. The first deployments are expected to get underway before the end of the year.