Access to current short-term 3.5 GHz rights expires at the end of October 2022
The government of New Zealand has reached an agreement with the country’s major telecommunications network operators to accelerate the deployment of 5G services across New Zealand and improve rural connectivity, the Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications David Clark said in a statement.
“As a result of a new agreement, many more New Zealanders will gain access to the speed, capacity and reliability of 5G services,” Clark said.
The minister noted that the access to spectrum has previously been sold to local carriers via an auction process, adding that this agreement will bypass that process in favor of a direct allocation method.
“Network operators have been launching 5G over the last two years, using the 3.5 GHz spectrum band – the first band to be allocated specifically for high-speed 5G services. The government provided short-term early access to this spectrum in 2020, to enable the country’s 5G roll-out to begin. With the expiry of short-term rights on the horizon, long-term rights must be allocated,” Clark said.
“As part of the new agreement, our three major mobile network operators – Spark, 2degrees and Vodafone – will be required to increase the pace of the 5G roll-out to small towns across New Zealand. There is also an expectation they will continue efforts to improve rural connectivity,” the official added.
Under the terms of the deal, shared network infrastructure provider, Dense Air, will also have access to the 3.5 GHz spectrum band with the aim of helping network operators serve certain parts of the country.
The details of this long-term direct spectrum allocation will continue to be worked through over the coming months as the government negotiates final contracts with the carriers.
Access to current short-term 3.5 GHz rights expires at the end of October 2022. As part of this process, these rights will be extended from November 1, 2022 until June 30, 2023, to allow network operators to continue their roll-out of 5G and to provide continuity for regional services.
In August, local carrier Spark said it had completed what it claimed to be the first end-to-end 5G Standalone network trial in the country.
Spark said it has created and run two proof-of-concepts to lay the groundwork for 5G Standalone roll out in New Zealand, through a collaboration with Mavenir, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Nokia and Oppo.
In September last year, Nokia announced that it had been selected by Spark to support its 5G rollout, which will provide 5G coverage to approximately 90% of the population by the end of 2023.
Under the terms of the deal, Spark will deploy Nokia’s latest 5G RAN technology across a large part of the rollout, while simultaneously upgrading 4G at these sites using Nokia products.
In March 2021, Spark and Korean vendor Samsung Electronics had launched 5G infrastructure in the city of Christchurch, the most populous city in South Island of New Zealand. The two companies had been working together on 5G trials since 2019.
