Auckland to get new wireless POP every week

13.04.2005
Von Juha Saarinen

New Zealand wholesale network access provider Wired Country says it will set up around one new wireless point of presence (POP) or access point per week in the Auckland area over the next three months.

Wired Country CEO Neil Simmonds says the new sites are part of its Project PROBE commitment and for expanding capacity to meet growth in Auckland. The sites will use a mixture of high capacity digital microwave radio for data backhaul, Simmonds says, as well as fiber-optic circuits.

The South Auckland-headquartered network provider won the tender last year to supply the Auckland region under the government"s Project PROBE initiative to provide affordable internet access to schools, community organizations and rural areas. It has established a wireless service operating in the 3.5GHz frequency band for the central parts of the city. Wired Country only supplies wholesale service which is resold through its ISP partners.

The existing wireless service met with great success but fell victim to its own success late last year, with heavy usage bringing it to its knees. Simmonds says the new Albany Heights site will help reduce the load on the existing Sky Tower access point, but adds that its service restructuring early this year with data caps for customers has freed up plenty of capacity anyway.

Asked how many customers the new sites will support, Simmonds says it depends on the plan mix chosen by customers there. Typically, he expects each new site to support over 1,000 domestic customers, but adds that Wired Country users tend to "suck and push harder than other ones".

Wired Country has placed service coverage maps on its Web site: http://www.wiredcountry.co.nz/coverage.html .