Faster Broadband on Way for South
By KEAN, Nicola
TELECOM is preparing to roll out speedier internet in Southland but Te Anau residents wanting broadband have been put on hold.
Nine Te Anau households and businesses and Telecom customers in two other exchanges in Southland are waiting for broadband internet while equipment is upgraded.
Telecom spokesman Ian Bonnar said customers sometimes had to wait to be connected to broadband when demand got ahead of supply.
More equipment had to be installed at the exchanges, he said.
Southland customers would be waiting “a couple of weeks at most” for Telecom to solve the problems.
Telecom division Chorus product management head Chris Dyhrberg said in the long term access to internet in Southland would be improved by an upgrade to be rolled out from next month.
From July, roadside cabinets throughout Invercargill will be upgraded to provide access to ADSL2+ internet speeds of up to 24 megabytes per second. Broadband users in Invercargill have speeds of up to 7.8 megabytes per second.
“We basically deliver a minimum capability of 10 megabytes per second.” But this wasn’t going to be an immediate fix, Mr Dyhrberg said.
The central Invercargill exchange would be the first to get the upgrade, followed by the south and east exchanges by the end of 2011.
Other towns in Southland, including Te Anau, will also receive upgrades during the next four years.
Meanwhile, Fairfax reports TelstraClear business customers will pay less for exceeding data limits under “pay-as-you-go” broadband plans launched this week.
Customers of the BizBroadband Simple and BizBroadband Swift plans will choose from individually priced data packs ranging from one gigabyte to 20GB in size. If they go over the limit of their data pack within a month, they will automatically receive another data pack of the same size at the same price.
BizBroadband Simple customers will pay $24.95 a month for speeds of up to 3.5 megabits a second plus the cost of their chosen data pack.
BizBroadband Swift customers will pay $34.95 a month for speeds of up to 7.5mbps plus the cost of the pack.
TelstraClear head of business Brenda Stonestreet said business customers were previously charged $20 for every gigabyte of data over their limit. Customers who opted for the 1GB pack under the new plans pay $2.95 for each additional gigabyte a month.
Telecom charges customers who exceed their data limit $20 per gigabyte.
The company was not ready to discuss whether it would reduce this, Telecom spokeswoman Connie Sprague said.
icola.kean@stl.co.nz THE PLAN Houses and businesses further away from the telephone exchanges have slower internet than those close to the exchange.
Chorus, a division of Telecom, aims to improve internet speed for those further away by installing new technology at 43 existing roadside cabinets and installing seven new ones throughout Invercargill.
Customers within 2km of the new cabinets should be able to connect to the faster ADSL2+ broadband speeds.
The upgrade is part of a national plan to install 3600 new cabinets throughout the country and will be rolled out between July 2008 and the end of 2011.
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