Vector boss confident of victory
Following its surprise comeback against Telecom in the Crown Fibre race for Auckland, the power line company's boss pushes its case.
Following its surprise comeback against Telecom in the Crown Fibre race for Auckland, the power line company's boss pushes its case.
Chief executive of new priority bidder Vector, Simon Mackenzie says the company’s experience with fibre and its stress on New Zealand ownership will win the bid for Auckland’s UFB network.
Vector was announced this morning as a rival to Telecom for the Auckland region and is confident it will the bid.
The company has over 10 years experience working with fibre, said Mr Mackenzie, and is used to running the Open Access Networks the fibre will support. “Essentially this is an entirely new network, and a complete change of technology.”
Mr Mackenzie said Vector was able to roll out fibre quickly, should it win the bid, and at a “very attractive price” by leveraging its existing assets in Auckland.
Vector has both underground ducts and overhead power lines.
The company has its own existing fibre network, which wholesales to various ISPs, and has also built, under contract, Vodafone's "Red" fibre network around the city.
Mr Mackenzie has previously told NBR that utilising overhead power lines - as Vector did for the $30 million "Shore Loop" on Auckland's North Shore - can speed a fibre deployment and reduce roll-out costs by 65% to 70%.
He said it was the company’s ownership structure, of onshore and local owners, that made Vector a strong bidder and that the company had all ready been working with members of the New Zealand Fibre Group for over a year in recognition of the need for local investment and the needs of the area.
Other factors in Vector’s suit included its experience with regulatory environments through its core lines business.
Funding for the network set up and maintenance would come partly from Auckland’s slice of the $1.5 billion Crown Fibre Holdings has allocated for building fibre across the country, said Mr Mackenzie. He said Vector would contribute some part of the cost from its existing assets.
The reaction in December to being left out of the initial bidding list was a realisation that the timing was not right, he said, since discussions with Crown Fibre Holdings were not commercially acceptable to Vector.
“We saw it really signified the fact we had to get to a position with Crown Fibre Holdings that they found acceptable and we found acceptable, and it was basically a timing issue.”
The reaction today was one of pleased celebration but Vector said it was straight back into negotiations for winning the bid.
“Obviously we’re confident we’ve got the best solution for Auckland. We wouldn’t be in this if we didn’t think we could win it.”
Discounting Telecom's tangential "boys and girls" of Chorus campaign, Vector has easily outspent any other UFB contender through its "short straw" print, bus and TV campaign, backed by its Fibre To the Door campaign.