Demand sees shortage of workers

A worker carrying out the installation of ultra fast broadband.

A record upsurge in demand for ultrafast broadband connections since Christmas is exacerbating a shortage of technicians to do the work, say fibre companies.

Speaking at yesterday's release by the Telecommunications Forum of a report on the status of the industry, Chorus chief executive Mark Ratcliffe said both January and February had seen a record number of connections and his company, which is responsible for most of the UFB roll-out nationwide, has had to boost its technician capacity by 30 per cent in the past four months.

Four companies have been contracted by the Government to meet its objective of rolling out UFB to 80 per cent of the country by 2022.

Chorus received more than 13,000 new fibre connection orders in January, the highest in one month, and it's currently completing an average 400 new connections a day.

"We need, collectively, twice as many technicians than we have working by the middle of the year, it's that kind of magnitude," Ratcliffe said.

The roll-out has just passed the half-way mark with 550,000 customers having fibre laid past their homes and 100,000 customers now connected, Chorus's Ratcliffe said.

It takes about three months to train a technician, depending on their skill level, but also represents a $100,000 investment when the training, equipment, and van are taken into consideration, he said.

Spark New Zealand chief executive Simon Moutter said fibre was an easy sell at the moment but there needed to be more education for consumers on what will happen at their home with fibre installations.

"There's lots of work to do to make sure we get the customer experience in the place it needs to be."

Chorus said it's taken a number of steps to improve that experience as the demand for fibre becomes mainstream.

That's included increasing the number of installers, taking a bigger role in forecasting demand, and setting up a contact centre to confirm appointments following criticism over a high number of missed appointments.

A breakdown of annual sector investment shows $686 million went into fibre fixed access in 2014.

- BusinessDesk