A deal between three telcos to share their unbundled exchanges is seen as enabling the companies to speed up the expansion of their broadband network.
The deal includes eight exchanges in Hamilton unbundled by Slingshot parent CallPlus, two unbundled in Christchurch by Compass, and 40 exchanges in Auckland and two in Wellington unbundled by Orcon which is part of state-owned Kordia.
As a result of the agreement, as many as 50 additional exchanges would be deployed this year, the companies involved said in a statement today.
Unbundling enables competitors to put their own equipment into Telecom's exchanges, and today's statement said the move by the three companies gave consumers access to faster and potentially lower cost broadband services across more exchanges in more centres.
Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett said that until a few months ago only his company and Vodafone had been unbundling, so Orcon had no one to partner with until the other two companies in the agreement started unbundling about two months ago.
Sharing unbundled exchanges enabled the three companies to invest in further unbundling more quickly, Mr Bartlett said.
If they waited too long to unbundle, the further investment would not stack up because of the development of the Government's fibre network.
But for now, fibre to the home was still five to 10 years away, and the partners saw the unbundled network delivering good broadband while the fibre network was built.
Orcon had spent about $20m on the exchanges it had unbundled so far, and he expected the cost of up to 50 more to also be around $20m, Mr Bartlett said.
While the three companies were sharing their unbundled exchanges, they would continue to compete at the retail level.
