Vector in high-speed broadband expansion

5:00AM Thursday May 08, 2008
By John Drinnan

Fibre optic cables.

Vector has embarked on a marketing push for businesses to use its expanding Auckland fibre-optic network.

The company and its retail resellers - MaxNet, WorldxChange and VBiz Online - this week began promoting high-speed broadband.

The biggest fibre network in the lucrative Auckland business market has extended to the North Shore and east Tamaki and new loops are being introduced into the suburbs over the next three years,

According to VectorFibre general manager, Maxine Elliott, fibre-optics wholesaling has the potential to challenge Vector's gas business in five years.

The expanding loop passes through industrial and business parks where it will be marketed to small-to-medium business enterprises.

Vector recently signed a deal with Vodafone to use its expanded fibre-optic network to strengthen its mobile phone network.

These services - or backhaul as they are known - offer a lot of potential revenue to Vector.

And as the Vector network passes Telecom exchanges, the fibre-optic will enable it to boost the speeds to residential customers.

That is because Telecom is unbundling the local loop - allowing competitors access to its copper connections into homes.

But moves into residential markets are for Vector's wholesale customers.

VectorFibre market strategy manager Chris Green said Vector fibre-optic offered a solution for broadband speeds in Auckland for the business sector. Vector also operates fibre inside the Wellington CBD but says this is in large part to service its Auckland clients.

Vector declined to discuss revenue or market share targets but said that the number of current fibre-optic customers was "in the hundreds" while there was potential for 12,000 business customers in the CBD.

The Vector experience and that of other fibre-optic networks - including Telecom - is likely to have a big impact on the development of a new strategy for expanding broadband. Elliott said the debate about broadband services and public policy complicated planning, but it would also create opportunities.

The Auckland CBD is well serviced by super-fast broadband by fibre-optic, as is Wellington and, to a lesser extent, Christchurch. Nelson also has a fibre-optic network.

Labour has yet to spell out its plans for broadband but National has already announced ambitious plans linked to Telecom and it looks set to be an election issue.

HIGH FIBRE

* Lines company Vector is the biggest fibre-optic player in the Auckland central business district and has a network of over 500km in Greater Auckland.

* It is expanding in a loop that passes through Auckland industrial and business centres.

* Along with its resellers Vector has begun marketing fibre-optic services to small and medium enterprises in the CBD and adjacent to its expanding loop.

* Vector's fibre-optic network provides "hundreds" of business clients for fibre-optic but has the potential for more than 12,000.

* It is competing with Telecom in one of the most lucrative markets for broadband.