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Want fibre internet access in your New Zealand work place

Posted November 5th, 2008 by peter

We do!!, and no doubt most businesses do. Our conservative estimate is that we could improve productivity by 10%.

To be fair, we are not too badly off compared to some. Telecom installed a couple of years ago a fibre cable that runs from the Stoke exchange in Arapiki Road to a roadside cabinet on the corner of Saxton Road and Main Road, and we are only about 400 metres from that.

We measure our speed using isposure, which seems a good way to measure our broadband speed. Our average download speed is 5.99 Mbs which is not too bad compared to others, but really not good enough. In 1999 I was getting that speed from my business premises at that time in Buxton carpark, so things have not really improved.

The Nelson exchange now has ADSL2+ installed (up to 20 Mbs if you really close to the exchange) and roadside cabinets are springing up around town. Unfortunately at home (where it is pitifully slow) near town we dont get it until October next year, but it gets worse. We will not get it to our work premises until April 2011. Check your workplace address here

So what about fibre? Network Tasman have had fibre runing around the central city in Nelson for at least 3 years. We made enquiries about getting fibre to our premises when we had an office in town a little under 2 years. At the time we were fobbed off to Telstra Clear who were the resellers. No problem – from memory it was around $1k a month, and that was for around 5 gig of traffic. We did not even go down the track of costing the fibre from the that loop to our premises. $1k was rediculous for a small business such as ours.

What has happened since then? Nothing that we have been able to ascertain. One of the drivers for fibre to the workplace in Nelson is the EDA (Economic Development Agency) who we conversed with around 6 months ago. They said at the time that the loop was in the ground (and it is) – it runs down the railway reserve in Stoke to Saxton Road, and then heads out on the Main Road and out to Richmond. EDA told us that negotiations were taking place to identify resellers who could connect businesses to the loop, but they had no idea what the cost to a business would be, and told us that even Network Tasman did not know. Sounds pretty funny to us that such an organisation which after spending around $3 million putting in a network to Nelson City did not have any idea of what they were going to charge.

It is now November, and still nothing has happened.

However, today I noticed a story in ComputerWorld which is interesting. It seems that Telecom have has added its fibre networks to the Digital Strategy’s broadband map and it does make interesting reading. It appears that Telecom has a quite a fibre network in the Nelson region already, and there has been quite a bit of doubling up. Might make for competition, but we wish both or either would get into gear and get it to businesses at an affordable rate.

Here is the map I created showing the networks in the Nelson area

Fibre network in Nelson – Network Tasman in dark brown – Telecom in blue

Anyway, the reason for this story is that the Digital Strategy’s broadband map has a resource to register your broadband demand. We strongly suggest to help get things moving faster in Nelson, (or where ever your business is in NZ) register your business and address now.. Hopefully the decision makers will regularly check to see what demand is in your area.

It MIGHT just make them take notice

 

Tags: , broadband, fibre, nelson loop