Chorus has launched a new network build programme to bring fibre broadband to a further 10,000 premises across New Zealand, together with its infrastructure partner Ventia.
The premises are located in 59 areas which Chorus said spans Kerikeri in Te Tai Tokerau, to Otatara in Invercargill, which are all near existing fibre.
Under the agreement with Ventia, Chorus will spend about $40 million on the extension programme.
News of fibre network comes after Chorus said in this February it would slash $200 million from its Regulatory Period 2 (RP2) Proposal to the Commerce Commission, covering 2025 to 2028, as the share market listed company felt the regulatory conditions were unclear.
Originally, the RP2 had Chorus saying it'd spend about $230 million on extending fibre, if the policy and regulatory conditions were right.
However, Chorus spokesperson Steve Pettigrew told interest.co.nz that "in the first round of submissions to our RP2 proposals, it became clear that RSPs [retail service providers], officials and some in the market were considering this investment 'locked in'."
"So, for clarity, on 5 February, we announced that we’d remove about $200 million from the RP2 main proposal and instead submit this as an individual capex request to the Commission as and when the conditions were right," Pettigrew said.
Chorus said the completed Ultra-Fast Fibre (UFB) programme between 2011 and 2022 covered 412 towns and cities.
Nearly 1.4 million homes and businesses are connected to the UFB, which is a service uptake of over 70%.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.