Telecom, BCL join for school net bid

By PETER GRIFFIN

Telecom and TVNZ's transmission arm, BCL, have formalised a deal to tender for regional contracts providing schools with low-cost, high-speed internet access.

The two companies will co-operate to tender in 14 regions covered by the Government's multimillion-dollar Probe project, which aims to wire up most schools with broadband access.

Telecom and BCL previously banded together in Taranaki and Southland to trial wireless services.

BCL is the wholesale operator offering capacity on its transmission towers and Telecom acts as a retailer of phone and internet services.

The pair missed out on winning a tender to cover 95 per cent of the Southland community. That went instead to Walker Wireless and Vodafone.

Telecom's group general manager government relations, Bruce Parkes, said Telecom would not work exclusively with BCL in every region but would look to provide a large chunk of demand for broadband services.

"Telecom's Jetstream [ADSL] looks economic to reach about 83 per cent of the country; for the next 12 per cent we will focus on wireless. We'll use BCL for the more remote, outlying areas," he said.

Telecom and BCL could pick up funding from the Government if successful in the region-by-region Probe tenders. The Government has never said how much it is spending on Probe, but it is more than $20 million.

Requests for proposals are expected to be issued soon. Then Telecom and BCL can lay out the details of their high-speed offerings.