The Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) will bring new fibre optic powered broadband to around 750 schools across New Zealand. Along the way, RBI grant winners Chorus and Vodafone will be upgrading their existing networks to improve connectivity to surrounding communities.

Chorus is the infrastructure division of Telecom New Zealand and is likely to be its own company soon, as a result of the voluntary demerger of Telecom. After the split, Chorus will be responsible for providing ADSL service on a wholesale basis to more than 900,000 New Zealanders, via retail providers like Telecom, Vodafone, Orcon, Snap, and many others.

With their RBI grant, Chorus have planned updates that will bring ADSL2+ to cabinets and telephone exchanges servicing 121,491 copper lines over a five year period. The map below plots the expected progress of this rollout, based on the latest information published on the Chorus website. Cabinets are color coded based on completion year; a key appears below the map. Pull down the select menu to see just one year at a time. Click on a dot to find out what Exchange it represents and how many lines are serviced. In addition to the points on the map, predicted coverage areas of RBI year 1 cabinets are shaded in green.

[iframe http://www.telco2.co.nz/rbicabinets.html 680px 780px]

Color Code: Green = 2012, Yellow = 2013, Blue = 2014, Pink = 2015, Red = 2016

Note: Some shaded areas do not appear to have exchanges or cabinets associated with them. I have submitted questions to Chorus about this issue.