On 25 March 2020 New Zealand entered into “COVID19 alert status 4” closing all educational facilities and placing the country into a state of lockdown for non-essential workers for at least the next four weeks.

Working with the Telecommunications Forum (TCF) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) Chorus has helped identify households with students that don’t have access to a broadband connection (Chorus, LFC or fixed wireless).

To support the education of students in need, Chorus will be providing RSPs up to 50,000 free wholesale broadband services to support unconnected student homes for up to 6 months.

It’s a unique opportunity for our industry to work together to support these households by connecting them to broadband.

How will it work

This free broadband connection will be made available to student households identified by the Ministry of Education as needing broadband to be activated for educational purposes and where Chorus has intact infrastructure.

Chorus would provide the broadband access on the best intact broadband infrastructure in place – fibre if already installed, VDSL if no fibre is installed, and ADSL if no VDSL is installed. Chorus expects most of this broadband to be provided over the VDSL/ADSL broadband network.

What does it mean for retail service providers

Chorus will provide retail service providers connecting one of these households during the promotional period a credit equivalent to the Chorus monthly wholesale cost every month for 6-months (or on a pro-rata basis).

Chorus will be publishing the terms of the offer in the next few days and invites all retail service providers interested in participating in this rebate programme to sign the offer and return it as quickly as possible.

Retail service providers will qualify for credits if they connect eligible households (as defined by a reference list* supplied by Chorus) to our 100/20Mbps NGA plan (where an ONT already exists and can be connected remotely) or the best available copper broadband (where fibre cannot be connected remotely) between the campaign start date and 31 May 2020 and have placed orders in accordance with the Ministry of Education’s remote learning support package.

Chorus will pay monthly credits on each connected address for up to 6-months (pro-rata) or until that household disconnects (whichever comes first).

Please note that by agreeing to the MOE rebate terms, you agree to forgo any credits which would have otherwise been paid under any other chorus incentive (e.g. Mix it up).

*This list is provided for reference purposes only so RSPs can validate credit eligibility and should not be used for prospecting purposes – the Ministry of Education will coordinate ordering for services.

Next steps

We know that delivering together these connections to students in a matter of weeks will present an operational challenge for our industry.

And we are asking for your support in working to do this as efficiently as possible, to manage orders, and particularly around failed installs where technician capacity is limited, to make sure as many students as possible can progress their learnings once term 2 begins.

Please work together with us and the Ministry of Education to provide up to 50,000 unconnected students access to broadband so they can continue their education during lockdown.

Contact

Please get in touch with your Account team for any queries.