New Zealand will continue to use a dual network strategy comprising both high-speed copper and fibre for the foreseeable future, according to Chorus head of networks Martin Sharrock. And he said the country’s rollout of FTTN infrastructure had been a critical step in its adoption of fibre.
Recent media commentary, including a report on the ABC’s Four Corners program, has focussed on New Zealand’s fibre uptake and improved broadband ranking. However, Sharrock told the Global Broadband Futures conference in Sydney yesterday that VDSL uptake was running slightly higher than UFB fibre.
“Chorus is not running one network, we’re running two networks. We’re very much running a fibre network but we’re also running a copper network. And the interesting thing here is that the VDSL migrations continue at pace. Fibre connections continue at pace. New Zealand is migrating rapidly to two technologies – VDSL and fibre,” he told the event.
He said the earlier FTTN roll out, which started in 2011, had allowed it to take fibre further into the network. The average connection speed on its network is now 60Mbps – double what it was 18 months ago. Data on the network is doubling every 18 months, while the number of FTTH connections has doubled in 18 months.
However, over the more recent three-months there were also 60,000 VDSL migrations – slightly more than the number of fibre connections in the same period.
“It’s not just fibre, it’s copper as well. When we launched VDSL the maximum speed was 70Mbps, depending on attenuation and distance. We now have maximum speeds on copper of 145Mbps using vectoring, using technologies like dynamic line management .. . and we’re developing a really good copper network in New Zealand,” Sharrock said.
“Probably more interesting to Australians, we still carry 50% more data on our copper network than we do on our fibre network. Yes it’s changing and it will balance over time, but the copper network still carries more data today than the fibre network does,” he added.
“So you can see very clearly we’re not just a fibre network or a copper network, we’re a high-speed copper network and a we’re a high-speed fibre network. We do believe that fibre is the end game, but this will take time.”
Sharrock also noted the importance of broadband monitoring in improving the country’s consumer experience. He said that Chorus and its RSPs are subject to independent testing that looks at congestion during peak usage times, with more than two years of data now available.
As a result of the testing, he said that fixed operators had started to make sure their networks are congestion free. “Every RSP is measured for their performance at peak hour, and suddenly all the fixed RSPs are performing congestion-free at peak hour,” he said. “”And guess what, the experience improves.”
Geoff Long