Local Fibre Companies (LFCs) will be implementing a level of change restriction on some parts of their networks environment over the 2022-23 Christmas holiday period.
They do this to minimise the risk of customer impacting events occurring at a time of reduced staffing levels across their organisation and suppliers.
We don’t have all information yet and will continue to update this blog post as information becomes available.
The data below has been gathered from the LFCs’ internet pages and emails they’ve sent out. The most accurate data comes from the LFCs themselves and this page should be used for estimation purposes only.
Become a NZ Internet Pro
Read the guide to get up to speed on everything from high-level market intel to service specific details and all the gotchas in between. No Forms, no cold calls – 100% free.
New Zealand Fibre Companies
Chorus
Chorus will be implementing a level of change restriction on some parts of our network environment over the 2022-23 Christmas holiday period. This is being done to minimise the risk of customer impacting events occurring at a time of reduced staffing levels across our organisation and suppliers.
The Chorus holiday restriction period (brown-out) is defined as:
- Start: 06:00 Thursday 22 December 2022
- End: 23:00 Wednesday 11 January 2023
Network Maintenance & Fault Restoration
- Chorus will continue to provide full fault restoration capability throughout the Christmas holiday period.
- Proactive maintenance will continue on-plan for the most part except for work carried out on equipment inside of Exchange sites and cabinets which will be restricted during the Christmas holiday period.
Co-Location Services (COLO)
- Restrictions will be in place for any build work in COLO areas, including the installation of sub-racks and racks or connection of new equipment to power/network services during the Christmas holiday period.
- There remain no restrictions during the break on Customers accessing their equipment in COLO areas for maintenance purposes.
Chorus Network Build
- All pre-agreed subdivision build work will continue as normal throughout the Christmas holiday period.
- Any build work that potentially creates risk to the existing core and access network elements will be restricted and deferred until after the Christmas holiday period has ended.
Provisioning Activity
- Provisioning activities will continue, although there will be a lower number of technicians working through the Christmas holiday period on fibre installations.
Escalations
- Chorus will continue to address escalations throughout the holiday period. Please follow the appropriate escalation matrix.
Work Restriction Calendar
Electricity Ashburton
Information not available yet. We’ll update this as soon as we get the information.
Enable Broadband
Enable is applying the work restriction set out below from 6.00am on Thursday 22 December 2022 through until 6.00am on Monday 09 January 2023. You are advised to begin planning now to avoid any work being undertaken during this period.
Planned Work Restrictions:
- There will be no Network Change activities allowed on the Enable network. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Any Network Deployment and Configuration activities;
- Network Operations surveillance equipment changes;
- Enable IT network changes;
- Central Office power and air conditioning infrastructure changes;
- All work in RSP CoLo areas, including the installation of sub-racks and racks or connection of new equipment to power/network services. This includes RSPs adding new equipment within existing racks.
- All network maintenance activities will be brought forward or deferred until after the Christmas holiday period has ended. It is expected that RSPs will also either expedite or defer maintenance activities on their CoLo equipment.
- Enable will continue to provide fault restoration capability throughout the work restriction period.
- Customer installation calendars will be closed from Saturday 24 December 2022, opening again on Wednesday 4 January 2023. Automated provisioning activity including access to our Appointment Manager self-service portal will continue throughout the Planned Work Restriction period.
- Emergency changes and other exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis and approved by the Enable Network Operations Centre – 0800 434 273 option 9.
Lightwire Rural
Lightwire Rural’s 2022/2023 brownout for the Holiday period is from the 24th of December to the 9th of January.
Lightwire Rural will be closed on 25 & 26 December and 1 & 2 January.
Operations will continue, although fewer Lightwire Rural staff will be working through the Christmas holiday period.
North Power
Northpower Fibre Network Brown-Out Period 2022-2023.
Please be advised of the Northpower Fibre Brown-Out for the Christmas – New Year period December 2022- January 2023.
Provisioning:
We will conclude provisioning orders from 1200hrs Thursday 22 December 2022, recommencing at 0900hrs Wednesday 4 January 2023. The self-service portal and B2B will be available throughout this period for new service orders and MAC requests to be submitted. These requests will be actioned when our staff return on 4 January 2023.
Assure:
During this brown out period our operational and fault teams will have staff on standby to action any incoming operational or fault matters.
Planned Work:
The brown out period for any planned work that could be customer affecting is from 0800hrs 17 December 2022 to 0900hrs 9 January 2023.
Tuatahi First Fibre
Over the Christmas and New Year period, a balance is required to ensure the ongoing integrity of the network as well as continuing to connect customers.
To minimise unplanned outages causing customer impact, we implement a change freeze over this period, with restrictions on provisioning and network activities.
This safeguards network stability during a period of high customer demand, and ensures operational staff are appropriately resourced to respond to any network events that occur.
Details of the restrictions being implemented over the upcoming holiday period are outlined below.
Customer Care hours of operation
From Friday, 23 December 2022 to Wednesday, 4 January 2023 our Customer Care team (previously Service Desk) will be closed for standard provisioning activity.
Our office spaces will be closed to the public from 12 pm Friday, 23 December 2022 to 8am Wednesday, 4 January 2023. There will be limited staff access during this time.
Core network restrictions
Our change restriction period will start on 5pm Friday 16 December 2022 and continue through until 7am Wednesday, 4 January 2023:
- a partial change restriction will be in place between 5pm Friday, 16 December and 12pm Thursday, 22 December 2022
- a full change restriction will be in place from 12pm Thursday, 22 December 2022 to 7am Wednesday, 4 January 2023.
During this time:
- we will not carry out network construction activity in Central Offices or on public property
- we will not perform any handover link changes and grooming activity
- all requests for access and works in Co-Location areas will be reviewed, with a stand-over enforced if we agree that the proposed works are essential
- we will observe any constraints imposed by local authorities within our network areas between Friday, 3 December 2021 and Wednesday, 5 January 2022.
Network Operations Centre hours of operation
Our NOC will remain in operation on the standard 24/7 basis during the entire period for fault monitoring, restoration work and any urgent provisioning work.
Unison
Information not available yet. We’ll update this as soon as we get the information.
Become a NZ Internet Pro
Read the guide to get up to speed on everything from high-level market intel to service specific details and all the gotchas in between. No Forms, no cold calls – 100% free.
