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Hawke’s Bay now has a 100 percent locally-owned fibre network for ultrafast broadband, the region’s lines company Unison and national fibre company FX Networks announced today. In a joint statement the companies said that UnisonFibre has purchased FX Network’s Napier metropolitan assets and entered into a long term contract for the use of another 20km of fibres to complete a total fibre loop between Napier and Hastings.

Unison Group chief executive Ken Sutherland said this will provide the region with a fully locally-owned fibre network. “It clearly positions UnisonFibre as the region’s connection to ultrafast broadband,” he said. FX Networks has a national fibre backbone connecting Hawke’s Bay to the rest of the country and the world. It is also a service provider using UnisonFibre to provide customer connections.

Managing Director of FX, Murray Jurgeleit said the agreement meets one of FX Networks strategic objectives. “We’re big believers in ‘local knowledge is best’. Making portions of our network available to local fibre companies so they can ‘start fast’ and at the same time enabling FX high performance services to the customers door is good for us an our partners” 

Mr Sutherland said the benefits for the region by owning its local fibre network are significant. “From the outset UnisonFibre has been committed to delivering Hawke’s Bay a truly open access platform that will benefit all regional players by enabling retail competition for voice, broadband and other telecommunication services. “This also clarifies that UnisonFibre and FX are two businesses working together to bring Hawke’s Bay into the fast lane,” he said.

Mr Jurgeleit said the agreement is consistent with how FX works with other local fibre companies in other regions of New Zealand. “We have great working relationships with other local fibre companies around the country including Citylink, Velocity, Inspire and Enable and now UnisonFibre. Local companies providing local connections with FX joining that Ultrafast broadband capability together nationally”

UnsionFibre now has over 75 km of fibre cable covering the region, Napier and Hastings are interconnected and fibre is being extended to cover all the main commercial and business areas of Napier, Hastings and Havelock North, as well as Taupo and Rotorua. FX’s Napier fibre runs along Marine Parade, past the Port of Napier, and follows the railway line behind Ahururi to Prebersen Drive.

When FX Networks came to Hawke’s Bay, Unison had not announced its intention to enter the telecommunications market. FX had already begun to roll out its fibre through Hawke’s Bay as part of its national build, joined together, these two fibre routes provide a compete loop around Hawke’s Bay and then out of the region.

The UnisonFibre network will immediately improve Unison’s internal electricity network communications, reliability and quality of power, and will also enable major users and businesses along the route to connect to the ultrafast fibre broadband. Mr Sutherland said UnisonFibre is now ready to bring customers on board and will have several business connections over the coming weeks. “UnisonFibre’s network is available to all service providers and we strongly encourage business to get in touch and express their interest.”