Based on your feedback, we’ve improved our Enhanced Bitstream 4 service during the technical and nationwide trial. It’s now ready for businesses across New Zealand to experience the benefits of NGA Business Premium.

Key benefits for retail service providers

• It’s easy to order, manage and configure - you can use the same Chorus ordering portal you already use to order the majority of our ultra-fast broadband (UFB) network services
• It’s easy to consume - you can use the same handovers you already use to connect to our ultra-fast broadband (UFB) network for Bitstream 2 and 3 services which support resilient handovers using Link Aggregation Grouping (LAG)
• NGA Business Premium is based on our next generation layer 2 fibre network and has a more comprehensive roadmap of new features and speeds
• You can self-assure - get network visibility and ability to do real time connectivity fault management (CFM)
• Enhanced performance - point-to-point solution with uncontended access bandwidth capacity
• Speed capability - NGA Business Premium supports flexible high and low traffic class symmetrical bandwidth options for premium business applications.
  • Low traffic class supports low cost high burst internet-like applications: 100/100MB to 1/1GB
  • High traffic class supports sustained high performance business applications: 10MB to 1GB
• New business opportunities - offer viable solutions for businesses that want true enterprise-class Ethernet and a future-proof solution for their network and Internet access

Pricing

We have listened to what you have said to us about point-to-point fibre pricing, reviewed the market, and taken a leadership role by pricing our 1G very competitively.

The NGA Business Premium 1G access in UFB areas has been priced at $395, which is lower than HSNS Premium (current Bitstream 4 in UFB areas), access in UFB areas which is priced at $455.

Our 100Mbps access for HSNS Premium (current Bitstream 4 in UFB areas) and NGA Business Premium in UFB areas are both priced the same at $380.

Incremental charges for bandwidth are:

• High traffic class: $10 for 10/10MB
• Low traffic class: $10 for 100/100MB

See the rate card for more information. Standard installation charges may apply.

Key benefits for your enterprise customers

This uncontended access will provide your customers with reliable high quality performance, which means your customer can work without worrying about their bandwidth and get more done in a workday.

Further, if they plan on transitioning to network-based cloud services, rather than hosting their own applications, they’ll need the bandwidth capacity of Ethernet access to avoid performance problems and the resulting effect on productivity.

You’ll also have control over network configuration with the flexibility and control to route traffic or allocate bandwidth (voice, internet, data, etc.), depending upon the network needs of specific locations, the applications your customer needs to run and the volumes of users they need to support.

What’s changing?

Our NGA Business Premium (Enhanced Bitstream 4) service is a premium business service. While there’s no current plan to change or withdraw HSNS Premium (current Bitstream 4 in UFB areas), we hope the features and benefits of NGA Business Premium service will make it your preferred choice going forward. NGA Business Premium is a lifecycle upgrade for HSNS Premium, which means it is an equivalent product, but there are differences in features:

Supporting details

You are invited to participate in our NGA Business Premium (Enhanced Bitstream 4) Commercial trial with your customers. The Commercial trial will be limited to 300 connections in aggregate amongst all service providers (in addition to the current connections under the earlier UFB trial). Where there is insufficient total connections to meet all of your requests, the connections will be allocated on the basis of the date that you signed this commercial trial agreement letter.

Enhanced Bitstream 4 is a point-to-point service on our Chorus fibre aggregation network meaning you can use your current NGA handovers to support the service to your customers.

Connection will be a standard charge of 2x monthly rental. Additional installation charges may apply for non-standard build (or non-UFB areas).

The NGA Business Premium (Enhanced Bitstream 4) service is an equivalent product to HSNS Premium (current Bitstream 4 in UFB areas), with several additional benefits. Key features are:

• Available in UFB completed areas (please note that property access consent may be required) and outside UFB areas by application
• Price – from $380 p/m
• Available in 100MB & 1GB variants. (10GB variant to be added in 2019)
• Supports up to 4093 virtual local area networks (VLANs)
• Restore service level (SLA) are: (i) Before midday are restored by 7pm on that day; (ii) After midday are restored by midday on the following day; and (iii) After 7pm are restored by 7pm the following day. There may initially be a slightly longer restoration time until our service companies become more familiar with the service
• 24/7 technical support (prioritised business helpdesk)
• Advanced network visibility via connectivity fault management (CFM)
• Supports handover and access diversity options
• Based on Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) standards for enterprise Ethernet services.

Resources

For a copy of the NGA Business Premium (Enhanced Bitstream 4) Commercial trial agreement including the service description, look under this page’s resources. For more information, you can also visit NGA Business Premium product page. 

To get a summary of the key benefits, have a look at the video below where Katherine Nicholson, business product manager tells you everything about it. 

Next steps

Please contact your account team if you have any queries or would like to take part in the commercial trial.