Business gets lots of broadband choices

New Zealand businesses will have a wide range of broadband options when the Government's ultra-fast broadband initiative gets under way, according to leaked Crown Fibre Holdings documents.

Residential users have two broadband speed options to choose from, and one type of fibre-optic technology.

However business users could have up to nine speeds to choose from, ranging from 30 megabits per second (Mbps) to 10 gigabits (Gbps) per second.

Business customers also have a choice of going for cheaper, passive optical networking connections as well as pricier active optical ones when high performance is required. The main difference between these two technologies is that passive optical networking is shared between multiple users while active optical networking is a circuit dedicated for each user.

As with residential users, business UFB customers are promised minimum speeds when their connections get busy; this is called Committed Information Rate (CIR).

For business users, several CIR options will be available for the connections. Providers can customise the passive optical fibre network business connections by adding more CIR as well as up and download speeds in 10Mbps increments.

Business customers with deep pockets will be able to go for 10Gbps download and upload links, speeds made possible by fibre-optics and unattainable on today's copper network.

The Crown Fibre Holdings pricing structure makes fibre-only links without services running over them comparatively expensive.

Unlike the residential variant, business users can expect to pay connection fees for high-end broadband services. These can be as high as $12,500, plus GST for the 10Gbps service. Small business customers will not be charged connection fees.