Saturn Communications

{{Unreferenced, date=November 2010 Saturn Communications is an Australian ICT (

Information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

) integrator based in

Hobart, Tasmania Hobart ( ; Nuennonne/Palawa kani: ''nipaluna'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Home to almost half of all Tasmanians, it is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-smalle ...

. They service Southern Tasmania as well as most parts of Northern Tasmania. Saturn Communications are playing a key role in providing services via the nationwide rollout of fibre optics (

National Broadband Network The National Broadband Network (NBN) is an Australian national wholesale open-access data network. It includes wired and radio communication components rolled out and operated by NBN Co, a Government-owned corporation. Internet service provider ...

) (now in administration and closed). Saturn Communications was also a company, based in

Petone Petone (Māori: ''Pito-one''), a large suburb of Lower Hutt, Wellington, stands at the southern end of the Hutt Valley, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour. The Māori name means "end of the sand beach". Europeans first settled in Pe ...

in the

Hutt Valley The Hutt Valley (or 'The Hutt') is the large area of fairly flat land in the Hutt River valley in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Like the river that flows through it, it takes its name from Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zeala ...

, that built and operated a

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

and telephone services in and around

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

and then later in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, New Zealand. The network was based on

Hybrid Fibre Coaxial Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s. In a hybrid fib ...

cable with additional

twisted pair Twisted pair cabling is a type of wiring used for communications in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted together for the purposes of improving electromagnetic compatibility. Compared to a single conductor or an untwisted ba ...

cabling to provide telephone services. The network was developed in competition with a network rolled out and later scuttled by

Telecom New Zealand Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications company providing fixed-line telephone services, a mobile phone network, internet access services, and (through its Spark Digital division) ICT services to businesses. It was know ...

known as First Media. Saturn Communications was originally known as Kiwi Cable Limited and based on the

Kapiti Coast The Kapiti Coast District is a local government district of the Wellington Region in the lower North Island of New Zealand, 50 km north of Wellington City. The district is named after Kapiti Island, a prominent island offshore. The pop ...

north of Wellington. The company was formed by a local entrepreneur. The company was purchased by Austar United Communications an Australian pay television operator and its headquarters moved and an aggressive network rollout planned. Austar's entry into the New Zealand market was predicated on the fact that prices for cable TV and telecommunications services were sufficiently above the average cost of producing them because of the respective near monopolies of Telecom New Zealand Limited in the local telephone market and Sky Communications in the pay television market. Telecom New Zealand responded aggressively by discounting telephone service in areas where the competing service was available. After the merger with Telstra Australia there were plans to offer pay television via a satellite DTH (Direct To Home) service due for launch in August 2001 with rollout across the country over the following months however at the beginning of August TelstraSaturn announced that the service was to be put on hold indefinitely. Saturn's DTH service was to operate on two transponders held by Television New Zealand. A portion of the transponder capacity was to be held by TVNZ for its own free to air broadcasts with the remainder being used for the TelstraSaturn's pay television services. After the purchase of

Clear Communications Clear Communications was a telecommunications company based in New Zealand. Until merging into Telstra's operations in 2001, it was the biggest rival to Telecom New Zealand. Background Prior to 1987, New Zealand's telecommunications sector ...

and by Austar of its shareholding in the renamed

TelstraClear TelstraClear Limited was New Zealand's second-largest telecommunications company before being acquired by Vodafone New Zealand in October 2012, previous to which it was a subsidiary of Australian company Telstra. It provided residential line re ...

the company's focus moved squarely to telecommunications and away from television services, notably reselling existing Telecom services. A programming agreement was struck with Sky Television to broadcast its channels and plans to expand the cable and telephone networks were cancelled as a change in Government lead to the possibility of local loop unbundling. Telecommunications companies of New Zealand Telecommunications companies of Australia