Telecom and Enable have signed a wholesale services agreement to deliver fibre-based services in Christchurch.
The agreement would allow Telecom, and its Gen-i ICT business, to maintain its strong focus on innovation and development in Christchurch, he said.
"Some of our Otago and Southland clients already use Enable's network services in Canterbury. This agreement will enable Gen-i to expand on these current networks and to potentially deliver a single management structure across a client's complete network."
Often, southern businesses had a head office in Dunedin or Invercargill, but had branch offices throughout the rest of the country.
The UFB roll-out would allow those companies to connect with all of their branch offices on the one network, Mr Thomas said.
"With the roll-out of UFB, businesses are looking for ICT solutions that use fibre to increase productivity and generally be as efficient as possible."
The roll-out of UFB in Invercargill was some way off, but the Invercargill-based companies, with branch offices elsewhere, could take advantage of the roll-out in other parts of the country.
The region's businesses were among the most innovative in the country, because of their geographical location, he said.
Gen-i recently won a five-year contract to build and deploy the Ministry of Education's cloud-based identity and access management service.
The new contract, to be delivered in partnership with Infosys and Hyro, was the first time the ministry had outsourced its identity and access management services.
The cloud would provide secure access to potentially 32,000 users of applications or services at the Ministry, the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
Mr Thomas said the cloud offered businesses access to virtual servers and data back-up through secured centres in Auckland and Wellington.
"Our clients already have high level access to data on our cloud servers."
Recent studies showed that Otago businesses were among world leaders when it came to using cloud-based facilities. It saved money on installing servers on-premise and allowed the money to be used on innovation and development, he said.
"The desire to be innovative has forced them down that path. They want the gains that come from the cloud now to push their business ahead."
