[News] Telecom NZ Rolls Out Phone Box WiFi Network
Telecom New Zealand has officially announced its nationwide roll-out of its WiFi service using old-school telephone booths. You may have noticed that the WiFi service was previously available as a trial and therefore you were able to connect to it free-of-charge. Unfortunately, the free trial is about to end if you are not a Telecom mobile customer.
But don’t fret, the pricing for a non-Telecom customer (that is customers that are on other mobile networks or visitors using a New Zealand or Australian mobile network) isn’t actually that bad! Not bad at all! For a flat-fee of $9.95 a month, you can continue to use their WiFi at up to 1GB per day! That’s 30GB per month for a ridiculous price of $9.95! Score! It is also said that Telecom is currently working on a range of other pricing plans.
For Telecom customers on pay-monthly plans and on the $19 and $29 prepaid monthly packs, WiFi at the phone booths will continue to be free for you guys!
Another cool feature of Telecom WiFi is that you only need to register once, and it will give you access to the entire network across the nation where there is an upgraded phone booth with Telecom WiFi. Approximately 700 hotspots will be live by the 7th of October with a target of 2000 hotspots by the middle of 2014.
The free trial is expected to come to an end on the 6th of October, so the above statements apply on the 7th of October 2013.
We are not sure of what the speed limitations may be, but currently, speeds reported by users are up to 10Mbps down and 5Mbps up! And as more users get on their network, speeds may also come down drastically.
Telecom retail chief executive Chris Quin says:
“We want to encourage our customers to use as much data as possible, because we know how the smartphone applications and services they’re using are at the very centre of the way people now live, work and play.”
“Adding free WiFi to their plans and packs is just another way that Telecom is helping our customers to make the most of their devices and to stay seamlessly connected on their smartphone, tablet or laptop anywhere, anytime.”
The Telecom Phone Booth WiFi service has been created by Telecom Digital Ventures, an incubator-style business unit designed to develop innovative business opportunities.
Ed Hyde from Digital Ventures said that close to 175,000 people have already registered to use the service that Telecom has extensively trialled out since last Christmas. He also mentioned that a large proportion of those who used the WiFi network during the trial were non-Telecom mobile customers.
“Our WiFi network has already attracted a huge number of smartphone users – both Kiwis and visitors – who have enjoyed the ability to do more things on the go.”
Mr. Hyde also then went on to say:
“As an extra reward, non-Telecom customers who have already signed up to WiFi, or who do so by mid-October, will be able to continue to trial it for free until early December. However, if you sign up from mid-October onwards, we’ll still give you the option of a one-week free trial of the WiFi service, to test how you like it before signing up to the $9.95 a month deal.”
The access point that they are using to deploy the nationwide WiFi is a Ruckus ZoneFlex 7762 model. It is a dual-band (2.4/5Ghz) outdoor 802.11n access point that has the BeamFlex Smart Antenna Technology that Ruckus are known for, that enables consistent, high performance, extended coverage and minimises inter-nodal hops that degrade performance.
For more information on the Telecom phone booth WiFi service, please visit: http://telecom.co.nz/wifi
