New Zealand incumbent Telecom NZ is urging state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) to announce its partners in the broadband network rollout project soon.
“We continue to engage in the process being run by CFH to determine the successful partners for the…
New Zealand incumbent Telecom NZ is urging state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) to announce its partners in the broadband network rollout project soon.
“We continue to engage in the process being run by CFH to determine the successful partners for the rest of the country, however time is running out and we are conscious that our shareholders need resolution,” said Paul Reynolds, Telecom CEO, in a press release.
The statement comes as CFH just confirmed two new partners in a couple of regions of the government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) initiative: NorthPower and Ultra Fast Fibre Limited, owned by WEL Networks.
But the company has not announced yet whether Telecom NZ would be one of its partners in another region.
In early September, it was revealed that the incumbent was not among the list of companies selected for priority talks around the government’s $NZ1.5bn (about US$1bn) project, which aims to supply high speed internet through fibre to 75% of New Zealand homes over ten years.
The three selected companies are Alpine Energy, the Central North Island Fibre Consortium and Northpower, as their proposals included a combination of access prices, funding provisions, industry experience and financial backing, according to CFH chairman Simon Allen, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Telecom is nonetheless still on the list of 14 companies that remain important contenders for future negotiations, CFH said at the time. But the company has been asked to separate its infrastructure operations from its retail business to get a seat on the broadband initiative, because retailers are allowed to have only a minority share in the network.
“We are firmly of the belief that a structurally separate Chorus as the cornerstone of a national framework for fibre is the most efficient and effective way to deliver the government’s fibre vision and that is reflected in our proposal,” added Reynolds.
“We are also open to partnership with other public and private sector owners of fibre assets, including the parties selected as CFH’s partners, where partnership can improve the overall economics of a national solution to deliver fibre further and faster for New Zealand,” he said.
It is not yet known when CFH will announce all the partners in the project.
