New Zealand telecom to sell fixed network assets

C114 Beijing Time May 26 Morning News (SHANGMU) New Zealand Telecom (EADS New Zealand) may sell a majority stake in chorus of its Fixed line network branch, so that it can participate in the government's ultra-high speed broadband (ultra fast Broadband,　　UFB) project. Paul Reynolds, chief executive, said the company was "trying to Paul Renoz the merits of the spin-off", as the government's UFB would "fundamentally transform New Zealand's entire telecoms structure."　　"The current form of New Zealand Telecom, both a fixed-line infrastructure owner and a retail supplier, cannot be a member of the UFB project, which has a government value of NZ $3 billion (C114 Note: about 2 billion dollars)."　　New Zealand Telecom has been operating in the retail and wholesale sectors for the past two years, but opposes complete structural separation.　　The Wall Street Journal reported that if New Zealand Telecom participates in the UFB project, it may retain a minority stake in its fixed line business chorus, chorus about half of the company's $3.9 billion worth of New Zealand dollars.　　Considering the impact of the spin-off, the credit rating agency Standard and poor (Standard and upgraded) revised the long-term debt rating of New Zealand telecom from stability to negative. "New Zealand Telecom's vertically integrated business model will be the main driver of the group's huge business risk forecasts." "Therefore, any form of separation of fixed-line access networks will have an important negative impact on the business risk forecasts of TCNZ (EADS Corporation of New Zealand)," said Paul Draffin, analyst at Standard & Paul Drevin.　　Mark Ratcliffe, chief executive of Chorus, resigned last month to lead New Zealand Telecom's bid to participate in the government's Optical network program. The Government of New Zealand invests as much as $1.5 billion in New Zealand dollars in open access, dark fiber (dark fiber,c114: pre-planted, unused optical fiber) infrastructure to accelerate the process of pushing high-speed broadband to 75% New Zealanders within 10 years.　　This fiber to the user broadband service, will provide at least 100Mbps downlink transmission rate and 50Mbps uplink transmission rate. Just recently, Vodafone has announced a bid for the New Zealand government's UFB project in cooperation with Canadian Axia Netmedia.