Telecom NZ Wholesale and WorldxChange pilot broadband over fibre service

Telecom Wholesale and WorldxChange Communications are piloting a service which offers fixed line phone and broadband services over fibre-optic cables connected directly to homes in a new housing development in Orewa, north of Auckland.

The service is to be connected directly to homes in Kensington Park, which is being developed by Kensington Properties. It is the first housing community project in New Zealand to have the open access fibre-to-the-home piloted. Residents can receive services such as high definition voice calling, video calling, IPTV, video-on-demand and home security systems.

WorldxChange is delivering a suite of broadband-over-fibre services with an online portal so their customers can adjust settings to suit their needs. WorldxChange has invested in developing IP technology for five years, including developing their own Xnet VFX digital voice over broadband service which allows users to control features such as three-way calling, voicemail notification and call forwarding.

An additional 13 developments and 3,500 households will be added over the next 24 months throughout New Zealand.

Telecom Wholesale is trialling two types of broadband over fibre services which will provide either voice-only, or broadband (including voice). The service will support download speeds up to 30Mb/s and an upload speed of 6Mb/s. A 30Mb/s symmetrical service is planned for later in the trial.

Feedback from the pilot trials will be used in the design and deployment of a fully equivalent, fibre-based broadband service that should be available to all service providers in first the half of 2009. These services are expected to include variants with symmetrical connections of up to 100Mb/s.