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​On 13 July we announced we were pressing pause on our proposal to launch new NGA Business Premium plans while we reassessed these as part of our Point to Point (P2P) product lifecycle planning. The planning is now complete and we’re instead proposing the following changes:  

• To stop-sell existing NGA Business Premium plans February 2023; withdraw November 2023 
• To stop-sell HSNS Premium February 2023; withdraw July 2024 
• Launch three new glass-only 1Gbps, 4Gbps and 10Gbps Business Premium plans March 2023 

Consultation is open until 28 October 2022 and we welcome your feedback on these proposed changes, with the details on how to provide your feedback below.  

We’re holding two 45-minute information and Q&A sessions regarding these proposed changes at 10am on 18 October and 20 October 2022. To add one of the appointments directly to your calendar, please select your preferred appointment time in the information and Q&A section below. 

NGA Business Premium  

NGA Business Premium (aka Enhanced Bitstream 4 or EBS4) is our premium fibre product for New Zealand’s medium-to-large sized businesses with complex connectivity or business resiliency requirements.  

Currently, NGA Business Premium: 

• Is only available in Chorus UFB and LFC regions .  
• Has more than 70 different multi-class plans – resulting in a complicated price list. Customers opting for both low traffic class and high traffic class bandwidth need to tag traffic – resulting in additional effort and money. 
• Only offers plans up to 1Gbps. 
• Has an installation pricing structure of 2x monthly recurring access charge . 
• Includes a complex installation structure for diverse connections – up to 5x monthly recurring access charge - depending on which local exchange the diverse circuit connects to. 

We propose to stop-sell and subsequently withdraw NGA Business Premium in 2023  

• Stop-sell all existing NGA Business Premium plans from 28 February 2023, 
• Withdraw existing NGA Business Premium NID & Glass plans on 30 November 2023. 
• Between the stop-sell and withdrawal dates, moves, adds and changes would not be supported. 

HSNS Premium 

HSNS Premium has provided the reach, performance and speed to medium-to-large New Zealand businesses for over a decade. Unfortunately, the technology supporting HSNS Premium is going end-of-life. As a result, we will not have the capability to support HSNS Premium. 

We propose to withdraw HSNS Premium 31 July 2024    

• Stop-sell HSNS Premium from 28 February 2023. This means no new HSNS Premium circuits will be provisioned from 1 March 2023. 
• Withdraw HSNS Premium on 31 July 2024.  
• Between the stop-sell and withdrawal dates, moves, adds and changes would not be supported. 

Business Premium 

We propose to replace all existing NGA Business Premium plans with three new ‘Business Premium’ plans launching on 1 March 2023:     

• These will be three new glass-only, high traffic class-only Enhanced Bitstream 4 plans: 1Gbps, 4Gbps, & 10Gbps.   
• The new plans will be called Business Premium – specifically: 
  • Business Premium 1000 
  • Business Premium 4000 
  • Business Premium 10000 
• The Business Premium plans will be available nationwide. 
• They come with simple monthly recurring pricing:  

• They offer a simple one-off installation charging structure. Irrespective of whether the Business Premium circuit is a primary or diverse/redundant circuit, all installation charges will be equivalent to 1x monthly recurring charge – as per the below table. 

We also welcome feedback on access extension under this revised structure, in particular for those longer (>40km) HSNS Premium lines. 

Transitioning existing plans to alternate Chorus products 

• All existing NGA Business Premium connections will need to move to an alternative product before the 30 November 2023 withdrawal date. 
• All HSNS Premium connections will need to be moved to an alternative product before the 31 July 2024 withdrawal date. 
• Below is a list of suggested alternative Chorus business products that existing NGA Business Premium and HSNS Premium could be migrated to:

* Only Point-to-Point products are able to support diversity which can be key for enterprise business resiliency needs. 

Chorus will provide to each RSP: 

1. A summary of your NGA Business Premium and HSNS Premium connections impacted by these changes. 
2. Suggested alternate products to migrate your NGA Business Premium and HSNS Premium connections to. Alternate products are based on what is believed to be the closest substitute, providing the best value. Your Chorus Account Manager can discuss options with you. 

This summary will form part of the withdrawal notice to you. 

Your account team will be in touch with affected RSPs to discuss next steps and answer any questions.  

Services to help with a seamless transition to an alternate Chorus product  

We understand NGA Business Premium and HSNS Premium are predominantly consumed by medium-to-large enterprise customers who are averse to disruption. We have a number of services to minimise disruption (conditions apply): 

• Our ‘Hot Cutover’ service means we re-use your existing Chorus fibre to quickly switch over to Business Premium, 24/7 – minimising disruption and risk. 
• Our new Fibre Project Management service provides the project management oversight of large projects. 

CHOICE incentives to support the migration  

Stay tuned for an update on our CHOICE offers into 2023 – we're thinking about how those will work alongside these migrations. At the moment, under the CHOICE offer: 

• Existing NGA Business Premium connections can move to the new Business Premium plans without incurring installation charges – supported by free Managed Provisioning Services (now Fibre Project Management) and free Hot Cutover. 
• Or get up to $2,000 in credits when migrating HSNS Premium connections to Business Premium – plus Free Managed Provisioning Services (now called Fibre Project Management) and Free Hot Cutover.  

Information and Q&A session 

We know there is a lot to take in here, so we’re inviting you to a MS Teams call to hear more about these changes and ask us any questions you have. There will be two sessions to work around scheduling conflicts. To add one of the appointments to your calendar select the appointment icon in the right-hand column. Please only select the session that is most convenient for you.  

If you have a vested interest in our Layer 2 Point-2-Point products, we strongly recommend you attend one of these sessions.

Feedback 

Consultation is now open until 28 October 2022. Please provide feedback via this form, or contact your account team to arrange a meeting to discuss further. We have set up the in-flight project page on our SP site, where you will have access to up to date information on the developments of this project. 

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