CFH announces shortlist and negotiations for first stage roll-out of UFB
Thursday 9 September 2010, 10:50AM
By Crown Fibre Holdings
113 views
Marking an important step in the roll out of the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) Initiative, Crown Fibre Holdings has shortlisted 14 parties following a review of the refined proposals received in August.
From this shortlist, Crown Fibre Holdings (CFH) has selected three parties for prioritised negotiations. The three bids, representing a significant portion of the UFB build, are:
- Alpine Energy (Timaru);
- The Central North Island Fibre Consortium (Hamilton - including Cambridge and Te Awamutu - Tauranga, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Hawera and Tokoroa); and
- Northpower (Whangarei).
“These three parties have displayed the best proposals including a combination of access prices, funding provisions, industry experience and financial backing,” said CFH Chairman Simon Allen.
“Their approach best met the Government’s UFB objectives. UFB should lead to exciting consumer product offerings as well as enabling increased productivity for business and improving service delivery in health and education. CFH believes these respondents can drive strong uptake and offer competitive access prices that providers of retail services will find attractive.
“On the basis that CFH successfully concludes binding offers with these parties, the Government and its partners will be bringing fibre to a significant part of New Zealand, which marks a real milestone for this initiative.
The remaining shortlisted parties will continue in the partner selection process.
“CFH will be having further discussions with the other shortlisted parties, and as a consequence of those discussions will elect other parties to negotiate with to meet the balance of the UFB target,” said Mr Allen.
“All shortlisted parties remain important contenders for future negotiations of binding agreements. CFH is open to either a Telecom, New Zealand Regional Fibre Group solution, or some form of combination for the balance of the UFB project.”
The party that has not been shortlisted at this stage is Canadian-based Axia NetMedia. Mr Allen said that this party’s bid included certain elements that were not part of the Government’s UFB policy.
"I am pleased to confirm that CFH is well on track to make recommendations for binding offers for initial investment partners to shareholding Ministers in October 2010, and to commence the roll-out of UFB before the end of the year," said Mr Allen.