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The Auckland suburb of Pt Chevalier will be one of the first places in the country to have faster broadband under Telecom's new $1.4 billion plan to improve internet speed.
Telecom said yesterday that Pt Chevalier, which suffers from notoriously slow internet access, could expect to have faster
broadband by the middle of next year.
The Herald reported in July that Pt Chevalier's broadband blackspot had forced some residents to take their business to other parts of Auckland.
Work on the Mt Albert exchange, which serves Pt Chevalier, is due to begin in January.
Pt Chevalier resident Malcolm Fraser, who is also a member of Pt Chevalier Business in Service of Community, yesterday welcomed Telecom's move.
"As a community we made a bit of noise and the result is that we are apparently at the top of the pecking order," said Mr Fraser, who is also on the Ignite subcommittee, which has been pushing for faster broadband.
But he didn't think Telecom had moved too slowly.
He said his group would continue requesting proposals from companies interested in supplying broadband.
"Obviously there's a lot of other companies interested in supplying services, not just Telecom. We just want to see what else is there."
Telecom spokesman Mark Watts said Pt Chevalier's problems were well known to the company.
"The basic problem with Pt Chevalier is they are out on a peninsula almost and the problem is the copper telephone system was built 30, 40, 50 years ago and the telephone exchange that serves Pt Chevalier is located at Mt Albert, which is quite a way away and it means the copper lines from that exchange to a lot of the houses are very long. The longer those lines, the less impressive the broadband performance is."
He said Telecom's plan involved installing roadside cabinets which would enable the lines to be shortened, resulting in faster broadband.
Around 2000 cabinets will initially be installed in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin over the next couple of years. He said 15 roadside cabinets would be installed in Pt Chevalier.
But critics have said Telecom's plan would cut competitors off from customers.
Mr Watts said: "We are aware of those criticisms and we will keep talking with them about it. The Commerce Commission will look at those issues next year as part of its programme."
