The ultrafast broadband signs in Clive are right, it's on schedule for May

Prepare for your berms to be ripped up, Clive. Installation is starting. Photo / Paul Taylor

It turns out the signs excitedly proclaiming that Clive will get ultrafast broadband by May are, for the most part, correct.

Chorus will begin installation within the next few months and will be finished by May, according to communications manager Steve Pettigrew.

However, residents may not actually be able to get it into their homes until June, he said.

"Fibre replaces the copper network, fibre is glass and transmits signals using light very much faster and much more capacity is able to be given," Pettigrew said.

Chorus is currently in the "build phase" of the operation where contractors will be installing the cable in the streets outside homes.

"Typically that's built in berms around people's homes. So people might be seeing Chorus vans around their area and they'll be laying the cables either underground or within the power poles in the streets."

Once that phase is complete, residents can speak to their preferred internet provider about installing and upgrading their VDSL or ADSL connections to fibre.

"Once we've completed the build, we provide the addresses that have fibre running past them in the streets and pass them on to retailers, such as Vodafone and Spark.

"There will be a period of a couple of months after the build checking that the job has been done properly and that all the addresses have been listed correctly so the government is happy with the work we've done."

After residents order their fibre package through their retailer, Chorus will install it into their home.

"Sometimes it can be a bit of a process, with some properties we might need to get the consent of all the parties and then we'll come and do the install.

"We have to take the fibre through the street to an external point inside the house and that involves people being home."

Pettigrew said not only will the new rollout be a positive for everyday households, but for regional businesses as well.

"Businesses will now be able to operate more effectively, whether it's using the cloud or video production or anything along those lines. It will make a change to everyone's lives."