Telecom’s network division, Chorus, today announced it had finished its year-long project to roll-out 28 roadside cabinets around Taupo, making it the first North Island town to get a full fibre-to-the-node makeover.

The so-called Whisper cabinets reduce the amount of slower copper wiring in your internet connection, by extending “fibre to the node” (fttn, in industry speak); that is, from the nearest full-blown phone exchange to a roadside cabinet.

The cabinets will serve Taupo customers who live more than 2km from the local phone exchange. Around 2,700 are connected already.

To take advantage of the faster ADSL2+ flavour of broadband supported by a cabinet, a customer must be on an unconstrained (full-speed download) internet plan and have an ADSL2+ compatible modem (usually offered free when you upgrade to an ADSL2+ plan). Telecom also recommends you have your home’s wiring checked if you want to wring maximum possible speed from the new set-up.

If they have all the above ducks in a row, Taupo customers connected to cabinets should see download speeds of between 10Mbit/s and 20Mbit/s.

Each Whisper cabinet costs around $148,000.

Chorus is rolling out around 3600 cabinets nationwide as part of its commitment to the government to provide 80% of the population with 10-20Mbit/s broadband by 2011. The upgrade, nudged along by the previous government, has seen Telecom's capex balloon to $3 million a day.

To date, 825 cabinets have been put in place. The roll-out also involves an additional 2500km of fibre being laid in the ground, taking Telecom's total fibre network to around 20,000km. A Telecom rep today reiteterated that the company sees serious potential for overbuild if a company other than Chorus takes charge of the current government's $1.5 billion fibre to the home project.

Cabinet rage
Vodafone and Orcon complained bitterly that a recent Commerce Commission ruling on sub-loop unbundling (essentially, the regulated rate for them to put their own DSL gear inside a Telecom Chorus cabinet). The pair said the commission had made it uneconomic for them to place their own D-Slams inside cabinets - a mini-me version of the more-established local loop unbundling, under which Orcon, Vodafone and Actrix have put their own gear inside Telecom exchanges.

However, like Telecom Broadband (formerly Xtra), Orcon, Vodafone and other ISPs also have the option of accessing a cabinet by buying a feed from Telecom Wholesale.

Vodafone and Orcon says such an arrangement gives them less control over plans, speed and pricing.

The commission has said that the cost of accessing a cabinet directly could be recouped by offering premium internet services. Although the commission did not name it, VDSL2, which offers twice the speed of ADSL2+ again, for those lucky enough to live within 1km of an exchange or cabinet, could be just such a premium service.

Telecom Wholesale has indicated it could charge another $20 per month per customer for VDSL2.

But as with all things broadband, there is controversy: Vodafone and Orcon’s interpretation of the Telecommunications Act (2001) is that all flavours of DSL should be priced equally.