On-hold batches starting back up 

In October we communicated our plans to re-start trials in non-Auckland areas where lockdowns were lifted. The government has since announced all of New Zealand will move into the new traffic light alert system from 11.59 pm on 2 December 2021. Based on this, we plan to lift the pause on all Auckland batches from 3 December 2021 - so the whole programme will be back up and running. 

Batch 1  

There are 32 remaining customers who appear to have not taken action in response to our copper withdrawal notices. We’ll send them an inform letter confirming that their new end of notice period (i.e. proposed withdrawal date) is 1 February 2022. Please continue to encourage these customers to move to alternative services before that date, and let us know if any are considered “at-risk”.  

Batch 4A

With Auckland in lockdown for over three months, all Auckland trial addresses across previously batches 2-4  have been grouped together, forming a new batch ’Batch 4A’. For more information please see our last update.

Timeframes have been consolidated to create this Auckland only ‘Batch 4A’. Its end of notice date is now extended to 14 June 2022. 

As with Batch 1, we will send these active users a letter to update them on the process and continue to urge you to help us move these active services off copper.

2022 Copper Withdrawal Programme

Next year, Chorus plans to send copper withdrawal notices to about 10,000 users across about 600 cabinet areas – just 1.5% of our total copper base. We also plan to trial exits from some exchange areas where only a few copper customers remain. 

This equates to about 6 new batches next year, launched two-months apart. The first is Batch 6, which will start on 23 February 2022. This batch will include about 1,400 customers and 115 cabinet areas. We will also continue to provide advance notice to RSPs a month earlier than required.

Our approach remains targeted and is not a mass withdrawal of copper services. We will continue to trial in areas with only a few copper services remaining and where fibre is available.

Contact 

Get in touch with your account team if you have any questions or email our copper withdrawal team at copperwithdrawal@chorus.co.nz. You can find more information on our dedicated copper withdrawal webpage.