The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) has released the June 2017 Quarterly Broadband Update showing that phase one of the UFB programme close to 80 percent complete, giving almost 1.2 million homes and businesses access to fibre.
Communications minister, Simon Bridges, said: “Our UFB programme is making fantastic progress. We’re fast approaching our target of 1.5 million households and businesses being able to connect to UFB by 2019, and for 85 percent of New Zealanders to be able to connect by 2024.”
He said the UFB build was now fully completed in 22 cities and towns and the number of households, business, schools and hospitals connected to UFB had increased 12 percent in the past three months to 413,047, almost 35 percent of premises passed.
Bridges also announced the start of UFB network build in four more regional towns, following the government’s announcement in January of $300m funding to extend UFB to another 423,000 New Zealanders across a further 151 towns.
The new builds are in Omokoroa and Te Puna in the Bay of Plenty region; Ngaruawahia in Waikato; and Stratford in Taranaki.
The build in Omokoroa is scheduled to be completed in mid-2018, and Te Puna in the first half of 2019; in Ngaruawahia in mid-2018, taking UFB to Cambridge, Hamilton, Te Awamutu and Taupo. The build in Stratford is due to be completed in mid 2018 also.