TelstraClear has launched a series of fixed-line broadband plans based on VDSL2 technology, a souped-up version of DSL that can hit up to 30Mbit/s download, and 7Mbit/s upload – making it the fastest copper line internet option in the country.

While Vodafone and Orcon have been publicising their own VDSL2 trials for months, TelstraClear, which kept its own build largely under wraps, has beaten them to the punch to become the first to commercially offer the technology in New Zealand.

There are a couple of catches, however: your business must be locatded practically on your door-step of your local exchange to feel the full force of VDSL2’s speed. Unlike fibre optic cable, or ADSL2+, which maintains a decent clip up to 6km out, VDSL2 bandwidth falls away dramatically after 1km.

And the plans, aimed at business customers only, are not cheap, with a full-tilt plan costing $399 a month. A slower version, offering half the download speed, costs $199 a month. Full plan details are on TelstraClear’s site. Plans aimed at residential customers will be rolled out early next year.

“BizNet” VDSL2 now available in the central business districts of Wellington, Hamilton, Tauranga, Napier, Wanganui, New Plymouth and Lower Hutt, and parts of Auckland. Dunedin, Palmerston North, Christchurch, Auckland, North Shore, Manukau and Waitakere will be added by Christmas, TelstraClear says.

VDSL2 sits as the top of the DSL food chain, ahead of ADSL and the faster ADSL2+, now being offered by Telecom Broadband, Vodafone, Orcon and others. But although VDSL2+ is faster than ADS2+, the equation is not simply about speed, as ADS2+ has longer reach.

“Combined with the capacity of our all-fibre backhaul, VDSL2 can provide genuine benefits for businesses starting from companies with five or more employees,” says TelstraClear head of business Brenda Stonestreet.

TelstraClear says VDSL2 is being piped through 140 cabinets on its own Next IP Network. 

Vodafone and Orcon’s VDSL2 trials, both around central Auckland, are in partnership with Telecom’s Chorus division and involve VDSL kit being moved into Telecom exchanges.

Vodafone external communications manager Paul Brislen says his company continues to test VDSL2 in five Auckland exchanges, achieving download speeds of up to 50Mbit/s. Both business and consumer customers are involved in the trial, whose expansion – like Orcon’s – is constrained by the Commerce Commission-dictated pace that Telecom unbundles its exchanges. Vodafone not set a launch date.

Mr Brislen notes the 1km restraint (which is not 1km as the crow flies, but up to one km of snaking copper cable, further crimping the distance). Customers further than 1km – or in the case of copper cable in poor conditions, a few hundred metres – will see faster results with ADSL2+.