More than 14,000 Wairarapa residents are today within reach of ultrafast broadband.
Telecom subsidiary Chorus have been revving up high-speed broadband in Wairarapa for the past three years in a multi-million dollar network revamp to open the region to broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps, Chorus spokesman Robin Kelly said.
He said
Masterton, Carterton, Greytown, Featherston, Martinborough, Pahiatua, Woodville and Dannevirke were included in the Chorus upgrade and more than 14,000 Wairarapa customers had the choice to tap into a high-speed "pipeline" now at their doorsteps.
Mr Kelly said in some areas the company was extending its fibre optic cable network and installing new roadside cabinets that would provide broadband services to those customers who lived too far away from their local telephone exchange.
Chorus will have completed deploying around 20km of fibre optic cable and installing 27 new fibre-fed cabinets in Wairarapa by the end of the year to extend broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps to "customers not already getting the faster internet experience following upgrade work at local telephone exchanges". This massive investment programme, he said, had built upon the 340km of fibre already in the Wairarapa and is part of Telecom's commitment to enable the delivery of high speed broadband to 80 per cent of New Zealanders by the end of this year.
Service providers are already installing broadband equipment in the new Chorus cabinets and telephone exchanges, which could deliver speeds of up to 50Mbps for customers within about one kilometre of the equipment, he said.
Wairarapa customers who are near the local exchange will continue to receive service directly from the equipment located at the exchange.
The Wairarapa network upgrade is close to completion, Mr Kelly said, although customers could help improve their broadband capability.
He said broadband service was affected by the user's broadband plan, modem, computer and wiring.
Chorus technicians were urging residents who believed their broadband performance was limited in some way to tell their provider, he said.
Chorus is three-quarters through the nationwide roll-out of about 3600 fibre-fed cabinets, which builds on the existing Telecom fibre optic network.
