Vodafone updates on UFB plans

Well, a little.

I asked Vodafone if it had a UFB launch date yet, given Telecom went live with its fibre plans today.

That leaves Vodafone (now incorporating TelstraClear) as the only major ISP yet to offer UFB fibre.

The answer: "We will be on the market later this year."

A rep emphasised the UFB was important to Vodafone, blah blah blah, and that staff and customer trials have been going since March last year. 

"It’s important to remember that tens of thousands of our customers already enjoy the benefits of ultra fast broadband via our cable network in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch. We actively promote the benefits of this service to people in these areas," a Vodafone spokeswoman told NBR Online. Those areas being the ones where Vodafone has inherited TelstraClear's hybrid cable network.

And recently the carrier connected Howick College to UFB fibre as part of trial programme. "It is the first Auckland high school to be connected," the spokeswoman said.

In September, Vodafone boss Russell Stanners told NBR the UFB installation experience was "no where near ready for prime time."

In December (unknown to either company at the time), NBR took a whirl on a Vodafone UFB account. It flew, and the trial customer reported a painless installation experience, carried out by Chorus (see some photos here). 

Why delay
So why a delay? Vodafone hasn't responded in detail. But as Telecom showed yesterday, it's not only installation and performance issues that need to be smoothed out. Telecom chose to launch before its billing software was finished - with the happy marketing and customer-experience side effect that even those on the cheapest ($95) plan get unlimited data for an unknown number of months. 

Telecom also launched without  a voice-over-fibre service, which it says is coming later this year.

Paltry numbers so far; Slingshot delay
Like Telecom, Vodafone hasn't suffered by waiting a year (and counting) into the UFB rollout.

Chorus and other UFB operators have now rolled fibre passed 134,000 premises and counting.

But customer uptake remains modest at just 3806 accounts according to a report released by ICT Minister Amy Adams in February – even after the government leaned on Chorus to chip in $20 million of its own money to ensure free curb-to-home connections until 2015 (other UFB partners are also offering free connections; Chorus is handling around 70% of the rollout).

And it seems many of those 3806 must be trial accounts - given the two members of the Big Four who have launched so far (Orcon and Slingshot), report paltry numbers.

Last month, CallPlus/Slingshot boss Mark Callander told NBR his company has just 200 active fibre connections, but would go on a big customer drive during March.

Yesterday, Mr Callander updated: "We have had some issues with our home gateway which should be resolved in the next couple of weeks. We did not want to launch until these issues were resolved, so expect a push in the next few weeks."

Orcon said it had 1000, with another 10,000 on a wait-list for when the UFB rollout reached their neighbourhood (and for a majority of New Zealand households, fibre is years away; see Crown Fibre Holdings' Broadband Finder for when its coming to your street. Some areas have no firm date yet for when the 10-year rollout will reach them).

ISP market share

Telecom: 49%
Vodafone-TelstraClear: 29% (TelstraClear today: 16%; Vodafone: 13%)
CallPlus (incl Slingshot): 9%
Orcon: 5%
Others: 8%

Source: Commerce Commission 2012 telecommunications market report