Telecom Wholesale will update its customers on Thursday about the progress of its Next Generation rollout that began in March. The first exchange fitted with ADSL+2 equipment was Pakuranga.
Spokesperson Melanie Marshall says only new broadband subscribers have been connected to the new equipment at the Pakuranga exchange. But exactly how many connections and whether some end users are now able achieve top speeds of 24 Mbps, Marshall can’t disclose until Thursday.
Exchanges that are next up for the NGN makeover are Khandallah in Wellington and St Albans in Christchurch. ISPs will able to comment on the schedule outlining which exchanges will follow at the meeting. This deployment schedule is unlikely to be made public to end-users and Marshall suggests anyone wanting information about a particular exchange should contact their service provider.
Telecom Wholesale will also inform their customers about a survey on the best modems for end-users. Modem performance and household wiring have a greater impact on ADSL+2 performance than they do on existing DSL technology. Another crucial factor is the distance that a premise is from an exchange, however Marshall says that laying fibre to shorten copper loops is not part of this upgrade, although “in some cases there will already be fibre there”.
The NGN network upgrade will take place in 100 exchanges in five cities – Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin and is due to be completed by early 2008. Marshall won’t put a dollar figure on the upgrade, but did tell me “this is by far the most significant network upgrade in recent years.”
This is Telecom Wholesale’s second industry briefing on the NGN (see blog, ADSL+2 Next Month).