Telecom and Ultrafast Fibre to deliver UFB to North Island

12 April 2012

Telecom and Ultrafast Fibre partner to deliver UFB services to central North Island

Telecom announced today it has signed a wholesale services agreement with Ultrafast Fibre Ltd (UFF) to deliver fibre-based services to the central North Island region.

The agreement will enable Telecom and Gen-i to harness fibre’s capabilities to deliver new applications in areas such as cloud computing, mobility solutions, video and collaboration tools.

UFF is the Government’s partner responsible for delivering ultrafast fibre broadband to homes and businesses in the central North Island as part of the national UFB initiative, including the urban areas of Cambridge, Hamilton, Hawera, New Plymouth, Tauranga, Tokoroa, Te Awamutu and Wanganui.

UFF’s CEO, Maxine Elliott, said that with the launch of fibre services in Hamilton and Tauranga in April, the central North Island is now beginning to see the benefits of having a local fibre provider.

“Our agreement with Telecom/Gen-i is a significant step forward in the execution of our business plan to sign up retail service providers,” said Elliott. “Our partnership will deliver new services that create economic value for the region, with our initial focus on the business, health and education sectors.”

CEO of Gen-i Australasia, Chris Quin, said that the agreement between Telecom/Gen-i and UFF demonstrates that the Government’s new investment in ultrafast broadband and RBI is working, with businesses now having more choice in fibre services from a range of retail service providers.

“We have had high interest from our clients in our existing fibre services and look forward to signing up our first business clients to fibre services over UFF’s network soon,” said Quin.

“We are working closely with UFF so that when they release their new input products, we can quickly integrate our national, end-to-end fibre services,” he added.

“Many businesses will run hybrid fibre, copper and mobile networks for years to come, and they will rely on ICT partners like Gen-i that can provide robust and reliable hybrid networks that integrate services from a number of fibre providers.”

Telecom is looking to work with UFF to trial bitstream services for residential customers.

About Ultrafast Fibre Ltd
Ultrafast Fibre Ltd is building a new, 3000 kilometre fibre network to enable organisations and individuals in the cities of Hamilton, Tauranga, Wanganui, Hawera, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Tokoroa and New Plymouth to connect to a new generation of ultrafast broadband.

Construction of Ultrafast Fibre’s network began in 2011 and will be completed in 2016. This is the fastest build of any local fibre company in New Zealand, which means central North Island organisations and residents are among the first in the country to connect to ultrafast broadband at speeds that rival the best in the world.

The company began making its first business connections in select cities from 1 April 2012 and it will make its first residential connections in select cities from 1 July 2012.

About Gen-i
Gen-i is at the forefront of helping customers take advantage of the convergence of technology and telecommunications, and the new opportunities this makes possible. Gen-i works alongside its 3,000 corporate, government and business customers to deliver seamless hosted and integrated ICT solutions. A member of the Telecom New Zealand Group, Gen-i achieves this with the support of 2,700 highly skilled people in 15 locations across New Zealand and Australia. For more information on Gen-i, visit www.gen-i.co.nz

ENDS

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