First year ultra-fast broadband rollout to urban schools

MEDIA RELEASE - 5 October 2011

Chorus and the Crown announce first year ultra-fast broadband rollout to urban schools

New Zealand’s largest telecommunications network operator Chorus, together with Crown Fibre Holdings, has today released the list of urban schools included in its first year ultra-fast broadband (UFB) rollout.

Some 90,000 students who attend 200 urban schools in the Auckland, Blenheim, Dunedin, Hastings, Masterton, Napier, Palmerston North, Porirua, Rotorua, Taupo and Wellington areas will soon be connected to a UFB network that can deliver broadband speeds of at least 100Mbps.

Plans for deploying UFB fibre connections to the remaining urban schools within the 24 candidate areas awarded to Chorus are still being developed.

Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe said he is excited to be at the start of the journey to deliver UFB fibre to 200 urban schools by July next year.

“It’s a great privilege to be part of building New Zealand’s fibre future and making a real difference in the way students will use the internet,” Ratcliffe said

“I’m delighted to see that a really broad mix of schools will be receiving UFB in this first tranche deployment,” said Crown Fibre CEO, Graham Mitchell.” It’s great to be making this opportunity available to so many New Zealand pupils”.

In line with Government policy, fibre will be delivered first to priority customers, which includes urban schools, health facilities and businesses.

Chorus is working with a range of retail service providers to assist them in developing new fibre-based services. This will enable schools to connect to a service using ultra-fast broadband in 2012.

Chorus’ website has the list of urban schools included in the first year of the UFB rollout, as well as an online map outlining its UFB candidate areas, the first year deployment plans and its business fibre area. This means people can check on the rollout progress and find out if they can connect to the existing business fibre network.

In all, Chorus’ new UFB network will run past more than 43,000 homes, schools, health centres and businesses throughout the country by July next year, building on its existing 27,700km national fibre optic cable network.

As part of Telecom’s UFB agreement with Crown Fibre Holdings, the deployment of the new fibre network has begun to enable customers to connect to UFB services before a demerger of Chorus from Telecom is voted on by shareholders at its Annual Meeting in October this year.

The complete list of the first 200 urban schools by region can be viewed at: www.chorus.co.nz/ournetwork

ENDS

Information on Chorus’ UFB project can be viewed online at: http://www.chorus.co.nz/fibre_further_faster

Chorus’ online map outlining its UFB candidate areas, the first year deployment plans and its business fibre area can be viewed at: http://www.chorus.co.nz/ournetwork

The Telecom Group's fibre optic network can be viewed online at www.broadbandmap.govt.nz

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