KEY POINTS:
Long-awaited work on sorting out Auckland's broadband blackspots has begun.
Telecom has started on a billion-dollar project aimed at increasing internet speeds.
First on the list is Pt Chevalier, which can look forward to improved internet service by the middle of the year.
Residents can expect to see spray paint marking the location of new roadside telecommunications cabinets - and an end to below-par internet service.
Despite being only 6km from central Auckland, Pt Chevalier's 3000 households have limited or non-existent broadband access.
The broadband blackspot is caused by the suburb's location on a peninsula, up to 5km from the local telephone exchange at the intersection of St Lukes and New North Rds.
Five kilometres is the maximum distance broadband can work via the traditional copper phone network.
Telecom last year promised broadband speeds of up to 10 megabits per second to 80 per cent of New Zealand households over the next four years at a cost of $1.4 billion.
The plan to boost internet speeds involves a combination of shortening the lengths of copper used to deliver phone and broadband to homes through a process called cabinetisation, and installing advanced network technology in local telephone exchanges and roadside cabinets.
Telecom network engineer Gerard Lindstrom explains the present copper phone network was built from the 1940s to the 1970s when nobody had any inkling about broadband.
As new subdivisions were built it was cheaper to extend the runs of copper line, often using various gauges of copper, than to build new telephone exchanges.
"That's how you end up with these long runs of cable today that won't support high-frequency service delivery," said Mr Lindstrom.
"They're perfectly adequate for delivering the voice service, which is what they needed to carry when those copper cables were pushed out."
Mr Lindstrom said voice calls, which used low frequencies, could travel up to 6km or 7km on copper wire. However, the higher frequencies used for broadband travel for significantly shorter distances.
The ADSL2+ technology Telecom is now installing in its exchanges, and plans to run in roadside cabinets, works most effectively over distances of less than 2.5km.
"If you go into every office in New Zealand they have got copper wire running all round the office hooking up all the PCs to the LAN [local area network]," said Mr Lindstrom.
"There is no fibre optic cable plugged into the back of your PC but you've probably got a 10 megabit or 100 megabit LAN connection in your office and the reason is you can get 100 megabit signal to run quite happily for a couple of hundred metres.
"This is in essence what cabinetisation is all about. Instead of having that copper cable from your house or your business premises to the exchange being 2, 3, 4km long, we're shortening it down to something a lot less than that."
Until 2012 Telecom will be identifying phone lines which require cabinetisation - the process where telecommunications equipment normally housed in the local exchange will be moved to new or existing roadside cabinets.
The Telecom network upgrade will be done in exchanges that serve more than 500 lines.
About 2000 cabinets will initially be installed in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin over the next couple of years.
In Greater Auckland, areas to benefit include Hibiscus Coast, Red Beach, Pukekohe, Tuakau, Waiheke, Beachlands, Kumeu, Runciman, Waiuku, Warkworth, Mahurangi, Helensville, Wellsford, Waimauku, Piha, Waiatarua, Leigh, Clevedon and Patumahoe.
RIVALS CRITICISE MINI-EXCHANGES PLAN
Telecom's plan to improve broadband speeds through mini-exchanges in roadside cabinets has its critics.
Rivals say it will throw their own investment plans into jeopardy by reducing the number of lines served from local exchanges. These represent customers they hoped to lure to their services now they are able to pay Telecom to hook into the copper network by setting up their own equipment in local exchanges.
Set-up costs for internet companies installing equipment in local exchanges are estimated to range from $200,000 to $400,000 per exchange. Ihug chief executive Mark Rushworth said last year that 78 of the 105 exchanges the company had identified as being viable to unbundle would be affected by the Telecom cabinetisation.
Telecommunications Users Association head Ernie Newman said running fibre optic cable directly to households and businesses was the only way NZ could catch up with other developed countries.
