Fibre Broadband Shares

[Snoopy]

One of the more successful government interventions in NZ has been the building of a nationwide fibre broadband network. Did I say nationwide? There are still rural pockets where fibre broadband does not reach. In those areas the also government funded RBI or 'Rural Broadband Initiative', a joint venture with Vodaphone building the towers and Chorus supplying the interconnecting cabling, fills the gaps. Nevertheless NZ is surprisingly well connected by global standards with fibre broadband even in the quite small rural centres. Why did the government get involved? There was worth in building an integrated fibre broadband network all at once in advance of market demand, rather than a fully privately funded piece wise approach that responded to market demand. Private business on its own would have struggled to justify the large capital expense needed to lay out a full fibre network before most customers were ready to adopt it. So the national level government became involved in the fibre network roll out from 2011 via 'Crown Fibre Holdings' (CFH), that was renamed 'Crown Infrastructure Partners' (CIP) by the time FY2018 came along. Chorus has yet to finish its part in the fibre broadband roll out. So new 'CIP Units', triggered upon a fibre broadband network builder reaching certain construction targets, are still being issued today. The term 'Crown Infrastructure Partners' reflects the fact that each particular broadband builder still needed to contribute their own separate funding towards the fibre roll out.

'CIP units' in the form of interest free debt ('CIP Debt') and delayed dividend payment preference shares ('CIP Equity') got built into the balance sheet of Chorus, for example. However, the associated crown subsidy takes the form of a time discounted value of 'CIP units'. There is no capital discount on the 'CIP debt', all of which has to be eventually repaid. Having said this, having interest free access to funding for up to 25 years is obviously a significant benefit to those government anointed fibre broadband network builders and owners. The first repayment date of 'CIP debt' is FY2025. That would have seemed a long way away back in 2011. But now 2025 is less than four years away, even of the final tranche of 'CIP Debt' is not due to be repaid until FY2036. Unlike 'CIP Debt', 'CIP Equity' does not have fixed capital repayment dates. But it does have an ever increasing onerous 'dividend demand regime', starting from FY2025, which is equivalent to an ever increasing interest rate. In today's interest rate climate, it would certainly make sense to either 'repay' or at least 'refinance' these preference shares by replacing them with present day much lower coupon rate equivalent debt. I say this without full information of what sort of revenue stream the likes of these fibre network providers will attract, or more correctly will be allowed to attract (because maximum revenues are government controlled) in the future. It is possible that allowable revenue growth will be sufficient that it will be 'capital efficient' for these broadband network owners to retain a higher level of company debt than is prudent today. But my gut feeling is that from now on growth in broadband revenue will be ever more difficult to achieve as customers reach saturation and the need to upgrade to a 'premium' speed service plateaus. Yet some government control on revenue is always going to happen, because of the natural monopoly that is a wholesale fibre network provider.

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

Perusing the Enable annual reports, you will find no mention of CIP funding on the respective Enable annual balance sheets. This is a quirk of the corporate structure of how the Christchurch City Council manages their businesses. As explained in my post 2 on this thread, there is an upstream vehicle for holding these CIP units is the holding company for Enable, CCHL. If you look in the CCHL Annual Report (AR2020 Page 63) the details of the CIP funding are to be found.

On that page we find out that the CIP loan facility is secured:

"In June 2016, CCHL entered into a Loan Facility Agreement with Crown Infrastructure Partners Ltd (CIP) (previously known as Crown Fibre Holdings Ltd) as part of the re-organisation of Enable Services Ltd (ESL). The loan is drawn down as network stages/premises are completed, and is used to subscribe in redeemable preference shares in ESL. The loan is interest free and is reflected at its amortised cost over the life of the loan. The loan is secured over the assets of the Enable group."

Now if we go to AR2020 for 'Enable', we can see that the referred to 'redeemable preference shares' are on the books as equity (p37 AR2020). While I don't doubt the legality of this practice I have to admit to being uncomfortable with it. Effectively debt from one company becomes equity in the subsidiary. The saving grace of this arrangement is that the overall owner of both companies is the Christchurch City Council, with no outside shareholders allowed. So it is clear that should the Enable preference share equity demand be called up, then 'real' equity funds from the council would be made available. Without that assured Christchurch City Council backing, the Enable Balance sheet would have a 'house of cards' feel to it in my view.

From Enable AR2020, Note 21

"ESL issued 5,591,500 fully paid redeemable preference shares to CCHL in 2020. ESL has 159,793,465 fully paid redeemable preference shares, paid to $1 to CCHL. The redeemable preference shares have the same dividend entitlement rights on a per share basis, as holders of the ordinary shares and no voting rights. ESL may elect at any time to redeem all or part of the redeemable preference shares."

Other equity that has been created at Enable is as a result of discounted cashflow analysis by Deloitte (CCHL AR2020 p58).

"Deloitte considered that the discounted cash flow (DCF) methodology was the most appropriate method of valuation, given that: long term cash flow forecasts were available, there is a reasonable degree of predictability around the cash flows, and a potential buyer of these assets would primarily be interested in the future economic benefits they could generate."

I don't have a problem with this source of equity. What Deloitte is saying is that a much better valuation of an asset than its cost relates to its earnings capacity. I am more than OK with that. Nevertheless, although such 'equity raising' is good for shareholders, it does distort the underlying return on shareholders funds, because shareholders do not have to stump up any funds to make such gains. So from the point of view of my ROE calculations, I do not include asset revaluation gains (My post 4 in this thread).

However, Chorus values their broadband network on a cost basis. So there are alternative ways within current accounting rules of looking at the same situation.

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

'Contact Energy' is not known as a broadband provider, although they do offer this option as part of a packaged retail service. But I have included them in this table as an example of another utility type share that pays more than their profits in dividends (as does Chorus). I think it is interesting to see how a gentailer stacks up against fibre service providers.

Information on 'Ultrafastfibre' is taken from note 6 in the 'WEL Networks Limited' AR2020 and the 'Ultrafastfibre' Chief Executive Report ('WEL Networks AR2020' p12) and 'WEL Networks AR2016'.

FY2020	Contact Energy	Chorus	Enable	Ultrafastfibre
No. Shares	718.1m	444.4m	67.5m	N/A
Share Price (18-05-2021)	$7.59	$6.29	N/A	N/A
Normalised NPAT	$127m	$67.1m	$11.3m	$1.868m
Normalised eps	17.7c	15.1c	16.8c	N/A
Normalised PE	42.9	41.7	N/A	N/A
Normalised NPAT Margin	6.1%	7.0%	15.4%	2.2%
ROE (Assets at Cost)	8.4%	7.2%	4.3%	4.8%
ROIC (Assets at Cost)	6.2%	5.5%	4.0%	N/A
Bank Debt	$1,198m	$2,322m	$294.4m	$617.0m
Equity Ratio	53.5%	16.4%	46.9%	5.84%
NPAT as declared	$115m	$52m	$11.3m	-$3.714m
Min. Debt Repayment Time	10.4 years	44.7 years	26.0 years	NM
Broadband Revenue	$17m	$959m	$75.0m	$82.4m
Average Broadband Revenue Growth	+243% (1 yr)	+37% p.a (4yr Av)	+59% p.a. (4yr Av)	+39% p.a. (4yr Av)
Wholesale Fibre Market Share (EOFY2020)	N/A (retailer)	60%	63%	61%
Depreciation & Amortisation	$220m	$402m	$24.186m	$19.5m
D & A per Share	30.6c	90.5c	35.8c	N/A
Forecast Net Dividend	35cps (PI)	25cps (FI)	0	N/A
Forecast Gross Dividend	43.75cps	34.7cps	0	N/A
Gross Dividend Yield	5.76%	5.52%	0	N/A

Notes

1/ N/A means 'Not Applicable'
2/ NM means 'Not Meaningful'
3/ 'Contact', 'Chorus' and 'Enable' have a 30th June Balance Date. 'Ultrafastfibre' has a 31st March balance date.
4/ Sample calculation for 'Broadband Revenue Growth' for 'Ultrafastfibre'.

($21.8m)(1+g)^4 = ($82.4m) => 1+g= 1.394 => g=39.4%

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

As a more traditional kind of sharemarket investor, I still have a lot of trouble seeing any 'value' in what is ostensibly a utility kind of investment trading on a normalised PE of over 40 (CEN 42.9, CNU 41.7). It just seems crazy. But if you look at the forecast gross dividend yield (CEN 5.76%, CNU 5.52%) things don't look quite so crazy, especially in this world of ultra low interest rates. Should interest rates rise this will be bad news for yield shares. In fact interest rates are already rising. But even with a ten year time window, I can't see enough overall economy exuberance to push lending rates above 3.5% even at the top of the business cycle. That being the case, I think current prices for CEN and CNU will hold up at today's levels, provided they can keep up those forecast dividend yields.

The ROE based on 'assets at cost' paints a particularly unfavourable picture for 'Enable'. I attribute this to the fibre broadband network being relatively new. With another ten years depreciation under the asset belt, that Enable ROE figure is sure to come back. Indeed I believe the reason the Chorus ROE looks so much more favourable is that a large chunk of Chorus's earnings is from the already very well depreciated copper network.

I have always been a bit debt averse with my investments. That's why I embrace the concept of figuring out how long a company would take to repay all its debts if it diverted all of its profits toward that goal (I have coined the term MDRT or 'Minimum Debt Repayment Time' for this). I am aware that 'certainty of cashflow' means it is fiscally efficient to leverage up a company's balance sheet. Yet, I regard an MDRT figure above 10 years as a sign of a heavily indebted company. Chorus, is on an MDRT figure of 44.7 years. I find that eye watering. I tell myself that extreme certainty of cashflow means extreme levels of debt are sustainable. A counterpoint view to this is that Enable (MDRT of 26 years) have stated that FY2020 is their year of 'peak debt' and they will target debt reduction from here on in. Call me too conservative if you like, and maybe it is my mindset that is wrong. But that debt position at Chorus worries me.

The question I ask myself is this. If I was looking for a good steady income stream, and CEN (MDRT = 10.4 years) had a similar yield to CNU (MDRT of 44.7 years),why would I take the risk of putting money into CNU? Those CIP zero interest CIP loans and zero coupon CIP preference shares are great and full marks to Chorus management for making the most of those. But the day of reckoning is coming. And even before the day of reckoning is here, these loans increase in size thanks to 'notional interest' (an accounting construct) morphing back into CIP loan capital and CIP equity ripe for repayment. The problem I see is that the repayment schedule for these CIP units is just far enough out in the future for current management to kick the can down the road and make it the next guy's problem. Current Chorus management are talking about boosting dividends in the next couple of years from rapidly increasing free cashflows. Increasing free cashflows now the UFB fibre network is near completion will allow them to do this. But is this a reckless action equivalent to lighting a fuse on a debt time bomb?

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

Unlike Chorus, the 'other' companies (Northpower, Ultrafastfibre and Enable) chosen to roll out fibre broadband in specific areas all over New Zealand had no established telecommunications network from which to earn money. The government funding, at least initially took a slightly different form than that used by Chorus.

From note 14 in the FY2013 'Crown Fibre Holdings Limited' Annual Report

https://www.crowninfrastructure.govt...eport-2013.pdf

Agreements set out the key commercial terms of the relationships between Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) and the Local Fibre Companies (LFCs) and their partners. This includes CFH having a shareholding in each of the LFCs that reflects the level of CFH’s investment, in conjunction with its partner, in the deployment of the UFB network in the Candidate Area(s).

Under this model, the Crown’s investment funds the communal infrastructure and the partners’ investments fund the build past each premises. CFH recovers the investment in the LFCs either by dividends received after the concession period or through the sale of shares. (In the case of 'Enable' the Crown was bought out of the Christchurch LFC in FY2016.)

The deployment plans drive CFH’s level of investment in the LFCs. As each stage of a plan is completed by the partner, the LFC purchases the UFB network from the installing partner by paying it an agreed 'cost per premises passed' (CPPP) for the number of premises that have successfully completed user acceptance testing (UAT) for the stage.

In turn, that purchase is funded by CFH subscribing to A shares (these shares carry full voting rights, with no dividend rights until 10 years from establishment) in the LFC, the price for which is the agreed CPPP. In respect of Christchurch based ENL, the local partner (ESL) funds a portion of the purchase by also subscribing to A shares.

The local partner is required to fund the cost to connect a premises and the end customer (essentially fibre optic lead-in from the street), the electronics necessary to light the fibre and the lFC operational costs. The partner generally receives B shares for funding these obligations (B shares carry full dividend rights, but no voting rights until year 10), although some prudent level of debt is permitted in each LFC.

All A and B shares in each LFC convert to ordinary voting dividend entitlement shares 10 years from establishment date (wlFC and Ultrafastfibre: December 2010, ENL: May 2011). The partners also provide management and operational services to the LFCs, which are included in the 'management fees to partners' line in surplus/(deficit) in the income statement..

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

ROIC is the 'Winner' yardstick on the the efficient use of capital (from whatever source).

ROIC = EBIT(1-T) / (Equity + Borrowings)

where T is the company tax rate.

If a company is earning more than its cost of capital, then it is creating value. A two year old PWC report lists the cost of capital of Contact Energy as 7.4% and Chorus as 6.3%.

https://www.pwc.co.nz/pdfs/2019pdfs/...l-report-1.pdf

I have retrospectively incorporated the results of my own calculations in the table above (my post 13). But here are the calculations.

Contact Energy

ROIC = $231m(1-0.28) / [($2,631m - 0.5333 x $2,066m) +($978m+$220m-$44m)] = 6.23%

Chorus

ROIC = $246m(1-0.28) / [$294m + ($430m+$1,892m-$0m)] = 5.45%

Enable

ROIC = $28.399m(1-0.28) / [($311.323m - $91.278m) + ($294.400m+$0m-$5.974m)] = 4.02%

Notes

1/ Equity in Contact Energy reduced by a 'balance sheet equity adjustment factor' multiplied by the revalued asset balance ($2,066m) that is incorporated into the balance sheet. ( Look at my posts 1822 and 1823 on the CEN thread to see how this is derived.}

2/ By contrast the revalued asset balance ( $91.278m) is actually listed in the Enable balance sheet. So I have simply removed it.

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

I have a lot of trouble seeing any 'value' in what is ostensibly a utility kind of investment trading on a normalised PE of over 40 (CEN 42.9, CNU 41.7). It just seems crazy. But if you look at the forecast gross dividend yield (CEN 5.76%, CNU 5.52%) things don't look quite so crazy, especially in this world of ultra low interest rates.

That debt position at Chorus worries me.

The question I ask myself is this. If I was looking for a good steady income stream, and CEN (MDRT = 10.4 years) had a similar yield to CNU (MDRT of 44.7 years),why would I take the risk of putting money into CNU?

Before I progress with this question, I need to put detail behind the glib two liner in the table that I produced on Depreciation and Amortisation.

For FY2020	Contact Energy	Chorus	Enable
Amortisation: Software & Intangibles	$36m	$49m	$2.495m
Amortisation: Customer Holding Incentives	$0m	$34m	$0m
Total Amortisation	$36m	$83m	$2.495m
Depreciation: Fibre	N/A	$219m	$20.356m
Depreciation: Copper Cable	N/A	$15m	N/A
Depreciation: Power Generation Assets	$177m	N/A	N/A
Depreciation: All Other	$7m	$112m	$1.335m
Total Depreciation	$184m	$346m	$21.691m
Total Amortisation & Depreciation	$220m	$402m	$24.186m
less Crown Funding Adjustment (Fibre)	N/A	$27m	$0m
Total Amortisation & Depreciation (as reported)	$220m	$375m	$24.186m

Notes

1/ Fibre Depreciation for Chorus I have calculated by adding the depreciation of 'Fibre cables', 'Ducts manholes & poles', Network Electronics' together.
2/ Fibre Depreciation for 'Enable' I have calculated by adding 'UFB Network Asset 1' and 'UFB Network Asset 2' depreciation together.
3/ Crown fibre funding for Enable is provided at parent company ( CCHL ) level.
4/ 'Other'intangibles for Contact includes 'Work In Progress'.

For Chorus the key depreciation figure for fibre, which has been mostly fully deployed now, is:

$219m - $27m = $192m

We can add to this the copper cable depreciation, as this will be unlikely to be directly replaced.

$192m + $15m = $207m

Spread over 444.4m shares on issue, this amounts to 46.6cps. The argument that Chorus management makes is that this cashflow becomes surplus because replacement of the long lived fibre assets is decades into the future, if they are required to be replaced even then.

If we add this 'surplus cashflow' to our NPAT, the MDRT time for Chorus reduces significantly:

$52m+ $207m = $259m (maximum theoretical surplus cashflow)

MDRT = $2,322m / $259m = 9.0 years

While still not low, this is much more in line with the MDRT figure for Contact Energy in the table. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that Chorus will pay off their debt in around ten years. I am saying that if they chose to do this (and that would mean the cancellation of dividends for 10 years - so it is very unlikely), then this would be the result.

The moral of this tale is, once you start to pick apart the headline statistics, maybe the debt position of the company is not as bad as those headline statistics imply.

Looking across to Contact Energy, it is fair to say that most of that 'Power Generation Depreciation' becomes surplus cashflow as well. In the case of Contact on a ''per share basis, that comes to: $177m / 718.1m = 24.6cps. This is part of the magic that allows Contact to forecast a share dividend payout of 35cps, when declared earnings are little more than half that number.

The question that remains unanswered though it how much of that 46.6c of surplus cashflow will Chorus pay out from FY2022 onwards?

Lastly to now answer the original question I posed, as a Contact shareholder you might invest in Chorus simply because Chorus is not a gentailer, but you can make a similar yield from holding it. There are different risks in holding both. There are no wet/dry years at Chorus. But there is the heavy handed risk of government regulation.

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

As a more traditional kind of sharemarket investor, I still have a lot of trouble seeing any 'value' in what is ostensibly a utility kind of investment trading on a normalised PE of over 40 (CEN 42.9, CNU 41.7). It just seems crazy. But if you look at the forecast gross dividend yield (CEN 5.76%, CNU 5.52%) things don't look quite so crazy, especially in this world of ultra low interest rates.

The question I ask myself is this. If I was looking for a good steady income stream, and CEN (MDRT = 10.4 years) had a similar yield to CNU (MDRT of 44.7 years), why would I take the risk of putting money into CNU?

I wrote the above a month ago, 0n 19-05-2021, and the issue is unresolved in my mind. I am still pondering whether I should be looking to buy more CNU: Do I access a strong cashflow at a fair yield in an industry with a good future that diversifies my significant gentailer 'income investments'? Or do I sell, because the unquestionably strong cashflow forecasts may have to soon be diverted to debt repayment, with debt seemingly at eye watering levels?

To get a wider context on the issue, I have decided to look at what is happening in Australia, with the Australian national broadband roll out of their 'National Broadband Network' (NBN). This is an Australian Commonwealth Government initiative to bringing broadband, at an affordable price, to all of Australia. NBN Co. Ltd was formally established as a government set up company on 09-04-2009.

'NBN' as it is commonly known, has been described as the 'largest infrastructure project in Australian history'. Like Chorus in NZ, it is a 'wholesale only' roll out of broadband technology. Unlike the NZ roll out, it is, for practical reasons, 'technology diverse'. Most of the roll out is 'fibre broadband' in the form of FTTN ('Fibre to the Node'). However on 23rd June 2011, NBN acquired from Optus for $800m , its hybrid co-axial network. to integrate that into the overall build program. Subsequently the Optus acquired network has been deemed to be not able to be upgraded to an acceptable standard. Yet a subsequently acquired Telstra built hybrid co-axial network (can be fast but traditionally speed depends on network loading) has been satisfactorily upgraded. In 2011, NBN also launched a satellite broadband service for those for which there is no plan to have access to 'metro comparable' broadband. NBN also offer 'fixed wireless broadband' in certain areas outside of metro regions as an alternative to satellite broadband coverage. Equal access will be achieved by providing uniform national wholesale access pricing across fibre, fixed wireless and satellite delivery technologies. This type of overall plan is called the MTM (Multi Technology Mix) approach to broadband roll out.

The roll out of fibre nationwide in Australia has not gone as smoothly as the equivalent exercise in New Zealand. From Wikipedia

--------------------------

"In 2017, Ben Morrow, NBN's CEO at the time, wrote a public blog post arguing that the New Zealand program Ultra-Fast Broadband operated in a different policy setting, with Telecom New Zealand separated into Chorus (wholesale) and Spark (retail). On 23 October 2017 the the Australian Prime Minister, Malcom Turnbull said, "The NBN was a calamitous train wreck of a project when we came into government in 2013," and argued that the NBN might never make a profit."

Turnbull commented on New Zealand's program "They basically ensured the incumbent telco, the Telstra equivalent, split its network operations away from its retail operations. And then that network company in effect became the NBN. The virtue of that was you actually had a business that knew what it was doing, that was up and running, that had 100 years of experience getting on with the job."

Morrow admitted that 15% of end users receive poor service through NBN and are 'seriously dissatisfied'. In addition, Morrow indicated that in July 2017, prices and performance for end users were suppressed through a 'price war' between RSPs. However, despite this comment, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman released its annual reporting showing a 159% increase in NBN complaints with nearly 40% of NBN customers dissatisfied.

------------------

We can't buy NBN shares. But how do they stack up against the Buffett investment criteria?

SNOOPY

[Snoopy]

We can't buy NBN shares. But how do they stack up against the Buffett investment criteria?

NBN Co. Ltd, better known as simply NBN was established under the Corporations Act in April 2009 by the Federal Government of Australia to design, build and operate Australia's wholesale broadband access network. The company's objective is to ensure all Australians have access to fast broadband at affordable prices and at least cost to the taxpayer. NBN is a pure wholesale provider. That means it must allow access to Retail Service Providers (RSPs) on a non-discretionary basis. The initial build phase for NBN was completed over FY2020. After the initial build, all standard installation premises have an opportunity to connect. 'Complex connections', where site access is restricted and/or difficult, are still being worked on. Likewise, greenfield developments are not included in the 'initial build'.

NBN take up by EOFY2020 was: 7.3 million customers / 11.7 million customer opportunities = a 62% take up rate

The legacy copper network is largely owned and run by Telstra as the principal incumbent. Part of the NBN roll out agreement is that Telstra will receive annual payments to 'turn off' their legacy network and in turn migrate their fixed line customers customers onto NBN. Once this switchover is complete, NBN is required to have a network 'performance guarantee'. This will require peak period wholesale download speeds of 50Mbps for 90% of the network and at least 25Mbps for the rest. However these are 'minimum standards' . 'Homefast'@ 100Mbps, 'Home Superfast' @ 250Mbps and 'Home Ultrafast' @500Mbps are available in many centres. Fibre does have the advantage of performance not falling away in proportion to the distance you are from the exchange, as the ADSL technology did. However customer's own modems and processing power of their computers may reduce download speed to less than the plan figures quoted here.

Lead pricing has been designed to ensure migration of existing broadband and voice End-Users, with the aim of allowing NBN Co to amortise the largely fixed network costs across a large base of End-Users. A key driver to NBN Co’s pricing philosophy has been to maintain low price increments between the different access speed tiers in order to encourage End-Users to migrate up the speed curve. This will in turn drive higher usage, allowing NBN to amortise largely fixed network costs across a broader base, in turn keeping prices low.

Being a monopoly provider, NBN is in a strong position with regard to the first 'Buffett Test'.

Conclusion: Pass Test

SNOOPY

[Lola]

The roll out of fibre broadband in New Zealand has been on a public/private partnership model. Details of the oversight regime can be found here:

https://www.crowninfrastructure.govt.nz/ufb/what/

The resulting fibre broadband network is a natural monopoly that will require ongoing government oversight.

There are four fibre broadband companies in New Zealand.

1/ 'Chorus', a listed public company on the NZX , that in May 2011 was engaged to build out 24 of the 33 designated Ultra Fast Broadband build out areas at the time. It also had the job of filling in any regional gaps not covered by companies 2,3 and 4 as listed below. Chorus is also the operator of the legacy copper wire network all over New Zealand.
2/ 'Northpower', a power network company that has also taken on the task of rolling out fibre broadband to the following Northland communities: Kaipara, Whangarei, However there are certain outlying areas in these regional centres and 'the far north' that are instead built by Chorus.
3/ 'Ultrafast Fibre' that has covered the Central North Island: Hamilton, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Kihikihi, Hautapu, Tirau, Tokaroa, Putaruru, Ngaruwahia, Te Kowhai, Tauwhare, Huntly, Raglan, Tauranga, Katikati, Omokoroa, Te Puke, Aongetete, New Plymouth, Hawera, Normanby, Eltham, Stratford, and .Whanganui
4/ 'Enable' that has built fibre broadband all over Christchurch. Lyttelton, Lincoln, Prebbleton, Rolleston, Tai Tapu, Kaiapoi, Mandeville, Tuahiwi, and Woodend

Chorus has its own thread that is busy enough. The other three companies are not publicly listed in NZ as I write this. There are certain discussion topics in relation to funding (via the Crown Infrastructure Partnership) and other 'market' issues that are not unique to Chorus, and are of interest to the other fibre network building companies as well. But it is also clear that these legislated monopoly networks are very different and have an entirely separate place in the market to the retail telecommunications companies in NZ: Spark, Vodaphone NZ (jointly owned by Infratil and Brookfield Asset Management) and Two Degrees (controlled by Trilogy International). So I think there is need for a space to discuss issues relating to fibre broadband that are not necessarily related to Chorus, but are not relevant to the retail telecommunications players. This thread is that space.

SNOOPY

Does Vital fit into this group somewhere?