Auckland cable network waits on council consents

By RICHARD BRADDELL

Telstra Saturn expects to begin building an Auckland telephone and cable-television network early next year, provided the necessary consents are obtained from at least one of the four city councils.

Auckland is widely regarded as difficult for a cable network because of the high degree of underground installation required.

Another problem is that some corridors are already crowded with other utilities, such as gas and electricity lines, many of which have been in place for years and are not properly mapped.

Such difficulties are believed to have slowed progress when Telecom was rolling out its now-abandoned First Media network.

Telstra Saturn chief executive Jack Matthews said the company would seek consents to use existing power poles where possible, but would go underground in sensitive areas even if consents to use the poles were granted.

Television New Zealand was a potential partner since Saturn carried its free-to-air channels, and TVNZ had much better skills at aggregating content, Mr Matthews said.

Regardless, Telstra Saturn would want to use TVNZ subsidiary BCL's network infrastructure for some of its own transmission.

But he said that while arrangements with Sky Television were also of interest, it was not Telstra Saturn's objective to become a purely network company.

Telstra Saturn completed a $900 million global capital-raising two weeks ago, without resorting to a planned syndication roadshow after it was oversubscribed by $1.5 billion.

The company's new Christchurch network should be running by the end of the year.

Mr Matthews said the city's television transmissions were likely to be fully digital from day one.