How Chorus built our $5.5B world-class fibre network

Mark Aue, CEO at Chorus, tells us how a Spark spin-off became NZ's largest telecommunications infrastructure company, putting New Zealand 17th globally in fibre uptake—ahead of Australia and the UK.

Chorus has spent $5.5 billion building a national fibre network to become the country’s definitive network operator. But they’re also one of New Zealand's largest property owners, with over 600 exchanges, 200,000 light poles, and 1,200 high sites—potentially a huge revenue opportunity.

Meanwhile, Deloitte projects that their network could pump $33 billion annually into New Zealand's economy by 2033, while the average Kiwi household is now chewing through 600GB of data a month—up from 40GB a decade ago. 

But challenges remain: Mark shares how Chorus is pushing to expand coverage to the last 13% of the population and managing the complex exit from legacy copper networks. Plus, the fight against digital inequality, with one in five New Zealanders still digitally excluded. 

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