TelstraClear encyclopedia topics

History

Telstra New Zealand was set up in 1996 by Telstra as part of Telstra's international expansion. Competing with the incumbent Telecom New Zealand, Saturn Communications and Clear Communications Telstra New Zealand initially focused on providing services to top tier international organisations who were already Telstra clients in Australia in the same way that Telecom New Zealand Australia, an Australian subsidiary of Telecom New Zealand currently does for New Zealand based customers in Australia.

Telstra slowly expanded its operations in the business market bundling Telecom New Zealand services distributed as a reseller with its own network services. It installed switches in Auckland and Wellington to manage incoming and outgoing international traffic and maintained an interconnect agreement with Telecom New Zealand and is likely to have had others with companies such as Clear Communications.

In 2000 Saturn Communications was sold by its parent company, Austar United Communications, to a new joint venture with Telstra entity that became known as TelstraSaturn.

TelstraClear was then created by the merger of Telstra's operations in New Zealand TelstraSaturn Limited and Clear Communications in 2001. Austar United Communications held an initial investment of 42% in TelstraClear before selling it back to Telstra.

Services

POTS Telephone Services

Residential telephone service is available in two ways:

1.Through TelstraClear directly within the areas covered by its own network, that is parts of Kapiti, Wellington and Christchurch.

2.Through a resale agreement with Telecom New Zealand for the rest of the country.

Business telephone services are offered across the country, either on Telstraclears own network in Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Napier, Palmerston North, Whanganui, Kapiti, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. HomePlan residential services are offered in the rest of the country via a resale agreement with Telecom.

Internet Services

TelstraClear owns two ISP's, Paradise.net and Clear Net. Both offer nationwide dialup and DSL service, and cable modem internet access within TelstraClear's own (built) network. Capable of speeds up to 25Mbit/s this makes it New Zealands fastest Home broadband offering. Outside of this network, broadband connections are resold over Telecom's DSL lines. A number of their dial-up IP numbers are blacklisted as abusers by sites such as DSBL.

Mobile Services

TelstraClear currently does not operate their own mobile network, they used to use Vodafone's network for cellphones, In 2007 this agreement came up for renewal, this arrangement was not renewed, 30,000 TelstraClear mobile customers were then scheduled to be returned to Vodafone. However, TelstraClear subsequently signed a wholesale mobile deal to access the Telecom New Zealand CDMA network and currently Telstraclear is beginning to offer its new services to Small Medium Enterprises and Small Business.

Subscription Television (TelstraClear InHomeTV)

TelstraClear operates the Hybrid Fibre Cable pay television network developed by Saturn Communications in Wellington, Kapiti and Christchurch, prior to the sale to Telstra. The network infrastructure includes twisted pair cabling used for residential and business local telephone service.

Programming is now managed by SKY Network Television following an agreement that saw TelstraClear move out of the role of sourcing developing a competitive pay television offering. The agreement allowed TelstraClear to distribute and bill for services provided by SKY Network Television on its own Direct to Home satellite service and TelstraSaturn's cable network.

InHomeTV is available on TelstraClear's Cable network in Wellington, Christchurch and Kapiti. The service is not available by itself, it must be bundled with TelstraClear's telephony service.

In 2005, the network was upgraded to a fully digital transmission network. They have stated that they will offer an HD service in the future but no dates have been given for this.

Channel Lineup

This lists all current digital and analogue channels. Channel numbers were changed March, 2007, to coincide with Sky channel number changes.

EPG No.	Channel Name	Notes
1	TV One	Free-to-air
2	TV2	Free-to-air
3	TV3	Free-to-air
4	Prime	Free-to-air
5	the BOX
6	UKTV
7	Vibe	(Digital only)
8	The Living Channel
9	Food Television
11	E!
15	Visitor TV	(Christchurch only) (Digital only)
16	CTV
17	Discovery Travel & Living
18	TBN
19	Māori Television	Free-to-air
20	SKY Movies
21	SKY Movies 2	(Digital only)
22	SKY Movies Greats
23	MGM
24	TCM
25	Rialto Channel
28	SKY Box Office Previews
30	SKY Sport 1
31	SKY Sport 2
32	SKY Sport 3
33	SKY Sport Highlights	(Digital only)
34	ESPN
35	Trackside	Free-to-air
36	The Rugby Channel
40	Disney Channel
41	Nickelodeon
42	Cartoon Network
45	Playhouse Disney Channel	(Digital only)
50	Triangle TV	(Digital only)
59	Te Reo	(Digital only)
60	MTV New Zealand	(Digital only)
62	Juice TV
63	63 - Our Music TV
64	C4	Free-to-air
65	ALT TV
70	Discovery Channel
71	Crime & Investigation Network	(Digital only)
72	National Geographic Channel
73	The History Channel
74	Documentary Channel	(Digital only)
75	Animal Planet
79	The Arts Channel	(Digital only)
90	Sky News New Zealand
91	CNN
92	Fox News Channel	(Digital only)
93	BBC World News
94	Parliament TV	(Digital only)
95	Deutsche Welle	(Digital Only)
96	Bloomberg Television	(Digital only)
97	Saturn Scan
98	Saturn Weather
99	Saturn Choose	(Analogue only, Digital customers can use the interactive EPG guide)
111	Shine TV	(Digital only)
144	SKY Box Office Pay per view guide	(Analogue only, Digital customers can use the interactive PPV guide)
145-159	SKY Box Office Movies	(Analogue only, Digital customers use channels 201-227)
201-227	SKY Box Office Movies	(Digital only, Analogue customers use channels 145-159)
300	KTV1	(Digital only)
301	KTV2	(Digital only)
302	JTV	(Digital only)
303	CTV1	(Digital only)
304	CTV2	(Digital only)
305	CTV3	(Digital only)
306	CTV4	(Digital only)
307	CTV5	(Digital only)
308	CTV6	(Digital only)
309	CTV7	(Digital only)
310	CCTV-9	(Digital only)
315	STAR Plus Hindi	(Digital only)