One Fibre seeks partners

Opportunities for IT companies with UFB rollout

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Business ISP One Fibre, the first ISP to peer with Chorus for UFB in Auckland, says it is also the first to connect a business customer to the new government UFB network. The company is now looking for partners to further extend its UFB business.

"We believe this will be the single largest game changer for the tech industry and being the first to market believe that with our partnership model we can enable other tech companies to join in now, before the big guys realise how far ahead we are," says Dwayne Smith, business development manager at One Fibre.

Smith says the company is looking for IT consultants, PABX providers and other IT companies to create referral, wholesale or joint-venture partnership models. He says it is important that the companies One Fibre partners with have "existing customer bases" and want to "provide fibre and digital voice solutions to their customers".

According to Smith, partners can take to market a white-labelled solution and make good margins from it. "Every week more and more suburbs are becoming available," he says, adding that business is growing and the company expects to have even more circuits in place as the year progresses. "We spent the last year getting connected to Chorus. Now we want to leverage that infrastructure we have already built."

"Having 20,000 circuits is the goal. We are looking for partners with no less than 50 circuits within 12 months," explains Smith. "The goal is to have 100 partners nationwide. We are going to be a bit picky, though. We want respected businesses."

Smith says there is opportunity for One Fibre partners to be trusted advisors to businesses and dive into the telco space this way. "There are many companies out there scared of what this UFB thing is. They are struggling to understand how they can add value. Instead of embracing it, they are almost putting up a shield against it," he says.

One Fibre is also looking for three salespeople to join its team, as it expects business to grow further.