Orcon Limited (trading as Orcon) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

telecommunications company. It is New Zealand's fourth largest

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

(ISP). In 2013 it had a 5% share of the fixed line market.

History

Seeby Woodhouse founded Orcon by starting a small

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for ...

(Orcon Group Limited) while at university in 1994. The startup provided computer advice and support, as well as selling early-model cell-phones and accessories. Demand led the business to expand its scope to include PC upgrade and repair services. Orcon remained focused on the local market on

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

's North Shore. By 1996 the business had expanded its range of products and sphere of operations. It began distributing computer accessories and supplies to small-business owners and to

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be p ...

users throughout the Auckland region and to other parts of New Zealand as required. In 1997 Orcon Group commenced as an ISP with three dial-in 33.6k

modems The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was establish ...

. Through the start-up phase it focused on the no-frills end of the market, aiming at skilled and technically minded customers, with pricing at half the price of the cheapest competition. In 2002 Orcon became a major ISP in the residential market; it launched a new web portal and undertook marketing initiatives to grow the customer base that positive

word-of-mouth Word of mouth is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others a ...

had established. On 12 June 2007

Kordia Kordia is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise. It provides a range of services, including connectivity, cloud and cyber security services, as well as managed IT, field services, broadcast and safety of life communications. Kordia owns and op ...

, a state-owned telecommunications company, purchased Orcon for NZ$24.3m, effectively nationalizing it. Seeby Woodhouse, an 80% stakeholder, made $19.44 million from the deal, while business-partner Mark Mackay pocketed $4.86 million. Orcon's main competitors included Telecom and

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

. In June 2014 the company was bought by CallPlus (later

Vocus Group Vocus Group Limited, formerly known as Vocus Communications, is a Telephone company, telecommunications company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Vocus Communications was founded by James Spenceley as a wholesale, en ...

). Vocus Group merged with 2degrees in June 2022.

Local-loop unbundling

Orcon issued a press release on 9 August 2007 stating that they had become the "first 100% kiwi owned telecommunications provider" to install equipment in the first unbundled Telecom exchange at Ponsonby. On 30 August 2007, Orcon released an additional press release to announce that they had successfully connected a trial customer at

ADSL2+ G.992.5 (also referred to as ADSL2+, G.dmt.bis+, and G.adslplus) is an ITU-T standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical downstream sync speed of 24 megabits per secon ...

speeds to their DSLAM via

local-loop unbundling Local loop unbundling (LLU or LLUB) is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from a telephone exchange to the customer's location. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and th ...

(LLU). In March 2008 Orcon launched their ADSL2+ service in parts of Auckland, becoming the first ISP to commercially provide ADSL2+ in New Zealand. Orcon has been a key participant in recent years in New Zealand's LLU process, which is a rapid u-turn from past public statements by former chief executive Seeby Woodhouse. A Computerworld article from 2005 describing a joint letter by several ISPs to the

Commerce Commission The Commerce Commission () (sometimes shortened to ComCom) is a New Zealand government agency with responsibility for enforcing legislation that relates to competition in the country's markets, fair trading and consumer credit contracts, and r ...

quotes Woodhouse as saying he did not sign the letter because he did not agree with the request for local loop unbundling. With LLU, Woodhouse says, only the bigger players such as ihug (now Vodafone), TelstraClear (also now Vodafone), and possibly CallPlus (Slingshot) could afford to put their own equipment into the exchanges.

Ultra-Fast Broadband

Orcon was the first retailer to begin providing fibre as part of the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) scheme. In September 2011, Orcon announced that a group of Northland schools were set up for service, with Orcon delivering telecommunications over fibre in partnership with Orewa-based internet service provider Watchdog Corporation Ltd.

Genius Go

In June 2013, Orcon launched Genius Go, a smartphone app that allows customers to make local 'landline' calls and receive calls to their home phone line via their smartphone, wherever they are in the world.

References

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External links