Telecom reveals UFB numbers after week one

Telecom says it received 242 orders from customers during week one of its UFB launch. It is now in the process of connecting the first of those customers to fibre.

“To put it in perspective, in just five working days Telecom received roughly twice the number of orders for Ultra Fibre that the market had been processing weekly in recent times," Telecom Retail CEO Chris Quin says.

The company launched its fibre service on March 28.

It won't be hard for Telecom - which holds around 50% of the residential ISP market - to ecliipse the UFB competition. Slingshot, which launched fibre last September, recently told NBR it had just 200 UFB customers. A major push was on hold while it worked through a gateway problem. Orcon, which launched March 2012, today updated it has 1300 UFB customers, plus "more than 14,000" on a wait list (Telecom did not break out a wait-list number).

Vodafone, which including TelstraClear holds around 28% of the residential market, has yet to set a date for a UFB launch.

In February, ICT Minister Amy Adams reported Chorus and other UFB operators have now rolled fibre passed 134,000 premises and counting. But customer uptake remains modest at just 3806 accounts (including phone company and ISP inhouse trial connections).

50/50 split
A Telecom spokeswoman spokeswoman told NBR customers were split 50/50 between those who opted for a 30Mbit/s plan (which costs from $95 a month) and those who plumped for a full-speed 100Mbit/s account (which costs from $125 a month).

Richard gives up - for now
Around "20% to 30%" of inquiries were from customers were from customers who have overhead copper lines.

Because Telecom has no voice-over-fibre service yet, a home's old copper line has to be retained for voice calls. However, Chorus considers running a second (fibre) overhead line into a home would be a breach of the RMA.

A Chorus spokeswoman told NBR last week the two companies were still some distance from agreement on a solution, which could involve copper and fibre being bundled into a single cable.

In the meantime, the 30% or so of homes (by Chorus' estimate) with overhead copper lines face paying for fibre to be trenched into their property.

NBR has been following the case of Auckland Telecom customer Richard Ram, who found himself faced with upwards of $350 in costs for laying fibre underground.

This morning, Mr Ram told told NBR that after multiple calls to Telecom and NBR he had given up.

He was looking at switching to Orcon, which also offers fibre, but it was not immediately clear if he could have his desired three phone lines. He was also considering staying with Telecom and waiting for its VoIP service which would negate the need for a second line. 

Mr Ram was surprised that after all the talk of free UFB connections, he faced substantial connections costs.

But more, he told NBR he was surprised no one seemed to have gone through the process, and anticipated likely questions from a customer in his situation. Different help desk staff at Telecom gave him different advice on his initial calls.

And now that he's thinking about switching, he's confused how Orcon and other ISPs will allow for Sky TV, burglar alarms and other services reliant on copper once copper is ripped out (on this point, Telecom says "Until a time when we can sensibly transition customers across to fibre-only (and which will support high quality voice services as well as monitored home alarms, medical alarms, fax machines etc we are retaining the copper lines into customers’ homes. To do this, Telecom is purchasing two inputs from Chorus - at our cost.". An Orcon spokesman told NBR the company's Genius VoIP phone works over fibre. Faxes aren't supported. Sky TV works, but you can't use your remote to pay for movies. People with monitored alarms are advised "to speak with their provider about an IP-based solution.")

Oh, and we are just about to pass 1300 live UFB customers.). 

A Telecom spokeswoman told NBR "not many, if any" of the company's customers with overhead lines had chosen to proceed with UFB, once costs had been detailed.

Playing catch-up
Mr Ram had been looking forward to UFB.

A provision of its contract with Crown Fibre Holdings meant Telecom had to launch UFB by April 1.

It launched without a voice-over-fibre product, complicating life for the Aucklander. But the rush-launch also meant it went live before its UFB billing software had been finished, meaning early adopters - even those on the cheapest ($95) plan - will get unlimited data. 

Telecom told NBR it would be several months before the billing software was complete. It expects to launch its voice-over-fibre product by the end of the year.

Only Chorus areas
The requirement to keep a copper line means Telecom is only offering fibre in Chorus UFB areas.

Chorus won around 70% of the UFB rollout by premise.

Areas it does not cover include Whangarei, Hamilton, Tauranga and Christchurch.

For Mr Ram, it's simply a matter that one side of his Grey Lynn street has overhead copper lines, the other side underground.

And he's caught on the wrong side of the street.

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