Spark upgrading rural broadband with 4G wireless
Whizzier broadband options are on the way for people in rural New Zealand and city fringes who struggle to get good quality fixedline broadband.
Spark said on Tuesday that it planned to launch a service within the next ‘‘couple of months’’ that will be based on 4G technology running over 700MHz radio spectrum.
The wireless broadband technology should over time provide the widest coverage of rural areas, excluding broadband delivered via satellite, which is generally slower and more expensive but which may remain the only option for the most remote homes.
Vodafone is preparing to upgrade its existing Vodafone Rural Broadband service to the same 700MHz 4G technology, though it has not yet given a date.
Spark said its customers would be provided with a modem and in some cases separate, small antennas that they could attach to their properties to improve reception. These will connect to the internet wirelessly, via Spark’s 4G towers.
The service will be different from mobile broadband, which is used to connect the likes of smartphones directly to the internet and which does not require extra equipment.
Spokeswoman Vicky Gray said the wireless service would offer higher data caps and provide better value than mobile broadband.
However, it has yet to release pricing or details of the plans that will be available.
The wireless service will compete with Vodafone Rural Broadband, which is currently based on older, slower 3G technology, but which Vodafone has promised to upgrade, and with a myriad of wireless services from smaller providers that often only service specific regions.
Gray said a point of difference was that there would be no installation costs, as customers could set up the necessary equipment themselves.
Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Craig Young said installation costs had put people off other wireless broadband services, but professionally-installed aerials had proved necessary for services that used higher-frequency radio spectrum.
‘‘If [Spark] is saying using 700MHz means it can get away without installing an aerial while providing a similar or better service, that has got to be a step forward,’’ Young said.
Spark last year splashed out $158 million to buy four of the nine blocks of 700MHz radio spectrum that were freed up by the closure of analogue television, while Vodafone acquired three blocks and 2degrees two.
Young said that meant Spark had the potential to support more wireless broadband customers than its rivals and to offer some combination of higher speeds and larger data caps, if it had sufficient cellsites to exploit the advantage.
Labour last week called for an inquiry into the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI), which subsidises Vodafone Rural Broadband, after it found only about 8000 customers had connected to that service.
Spark wholesale manager Lindsay Cowley said it believed its forthcoming service would ‘‘address these concerns’’. Cowley said: ‘‘700MHz is the ideal spectrum to roll out fast 4G services to rural and regional cellsites across New Zealand due to its greater reach of coverage from the cellsite over other frequencies’’.
If [Spark] is saying using 700MHz means it can get away without installing an aerial while providing a similar or better service, that has got to be a step forward.