Orcon Limited (trading as Orcon) is a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

telecommunications company. It is New Zealand's fourth largest

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise priva ...

(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 buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

(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 (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about I ...

'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 many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. ...

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 A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more carr ...

. 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, or ''viva voce'', 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 pe ...

had established. On 12 June 2007

Kordia Kordia is a New Zealand government-owned company, offering a range of technology services and solutions to businesses. It provides a range of services, including mission-critical connectivity, cloud and cyber security services, as well as manag ...

, 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 plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. , Vod ...

. In June 2014 the company was bought by

CallPlus CallPlus was a telecommunications company providing phone, calling, internet, mobile and advanced connectivity services to New Zealand businesses. Since 2016, CallPlus has been part of the Vocus Group Vocus Group Limited, formerly known as Voc ...

(later

Vocus Group Vocus Group Limited, formerly known as Vocus Communications, is an international telecommunications company headquartered in North Sydney, Australia. Founded by James Spenceley as a wholesale, business, government and consumer telecommunicati ...

). Vocus Group merged with

2degrees 2degrees is a New Zealand telecommunications provider. Its mobile network launched on 4 August 2009 after nine years of planning. 2degrees offers prepaid and pay-monthly mobile services as well as fixed-line phone and broadband services. 2degre ...

in June 2022.

Local-loop unbundling

Orcon issued
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 additiona
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 second ...

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 the telephone exchange to the customer's premises. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and ...

(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.
Computerworld article
from 2005 describing a joint letter by several ISPs to the Commerce Commission 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

(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

{{Reflist

External links