Chorus are introducing two Auckland nodes to our Chorus Data Centre Connect (CDC) Service with planned availability on 1 February 2023 closely followed by a Wellington node planned availability on 1 March 2023:

• Canberra Data Centre Silverdale to Forest Hill Exchange (FOR)
• Canberra Data Centre Hobsonville to Massey Exchange (MSY)
• Xtreme Data Centre, Thorndon Quay Wellington to Courtney Place Exchange (CPC)  

We will be providing both 10G & 100G CDC services at the two new Auckland hyperscale data centres and the Wellington Data Centre Xtreme to meet demand. This offers you the ability to connect into our full range of products and services at these additional data centre facilities.

The designated exchanges for the new transport service will be to Forest Hill & Massey for the new Auckland data centres and Courtney Place for the Wellington data centre. From these exchanges, you can then connect further afield with services like CRC & ICABS.      

Features and pricing for consultation 

Since launch of CDC, we have received feedback from you requesting potential enhancements to create greater flexibility within the product. We’ve taken onboard this feedback and are proposing to offer the following new features to the CDC service portfolio with a potential launch date of May 2023:

• Flexible termination of the service at a designated exchange
• Single Fibre Working (SFW) for 10G to customer equipment 
• New simplified pricing model for all CDC nodes 
• Revised Early Termination Clause (ETC)

How do these proposed changes benefit you?

• With the full CDC reprice as an access service, some of you will see an increase for 10G services, however, we believe this will be offset by simplification of pricing across our data centre portfolio, and a reduction in price of 100G service.
• Additionally, you will have the flexibility and ease of being able to choose a designated exchange that is likely to be where your equipment and handovers are. This may save you the additional costs of ICABS to get to your equipment and handover locations. 

Simplified pricing

The existing pricing structure has multiple term discounts (Open, 12, 24, 36, 48, & 60 months). We are proposing to simplify this to two terms – Open or 24 months – and apply consistent pricing regardless of the location.

In some cases, this would mean an increase in price, which we would aim to offset with proposed additional value-added features and options as outlined further below, along with a reduction in the 100G price as this has increasingly becoming the market norm for data centres and hyperscalers.

Proposed pricing: 

Pricing excludes GST.

Flexible termination exchange

Offering you the choice of  termination exchange within the local data centre service area from a list of designated Chorus exchanges, providing greater flexibility for you to connect back to your equipment at chosen points of presence, and potentially reduce your requirement for ICABS.   Chorus currently predetermine that designated exchange. The list of these proposed designated exchanges can be found below. 

Single Fibre Working (SFW)

The option of Single Fibre Working (SFW) for 10G services, reducing some SFP equipment costs incurred with dual fibre.        

Early Termination Charges (ETC)

Existing contracted customers can choose to maintain their contracted terms until they expire. For those on existing and new contracted terms, we are amending the ETC so that you can pay out the remainder of your committed term, which aligns to the cost of the nearest committed term as at the termination date (amended Service Description with detail will be released with December Product Forum).  

Feedback 

We would like to know what you think of the new features and pricing we’ve proposed above. Consultation is open from today until 16 December 2022. You can provide feedback via this form below or contact your account team to arrange a meeting to discuss further. We will share the feedback received and recommendations from the consultation at the February Product Forum.