Carrier Wi-Fi Reaches the Mountain Top with Spark New Zealand

Written By Lisa Garza, Cisco Service Provider Marketing, Mobility Solutions

Not many of us would expect to get free Wi-Fi when standing on the top of the mountain at a ski resort. Spark New Zealand (formerly Telecom New Zealand) provides just that to their customers who have come to expect quality of experience everywhere, anytime.

By deploying Cisco Service Provider Wi-Fi, Spark NZ has expanded wireless services to their customers from the Auckland city streets to the top of Coronet Peak, allowing their mobile customers to enjoy access to an additional network as they work and play. The Spark Ventures group works in start-up mode – moving quickly and putting the customer first to offer new services. Their innovation started by putting Wi-Fi in phone boxes on the street, and they proceeded to follow their customers as they grew the network footprint.

The carrier-grade Wi-Fi network is now deployed in leisure centers, beach communities, on trains and in busses in addition to downtown streets, retailers and banks. As Coronet Peak Ski Area Manager Ross Copland says in this video highlighting the deployment in beautiful New Zealand, “We are a premier mountain here in New Zealand and we expect our service providers to be premium service providers, so the fact that Telecom has partnered with Cisco is greatly appreciated.”

Looking ahead, Spark NZ plans to provide their customers with secure and seamless access to the network with Hotspot 2.0, and to start to offer location-based intelligence for new monetization opportunities with local businesses using Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences. From the top of Coronet Peak, the horizon is endless.

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