New Zealand telco firm Spark has announced it will launch a new wireless broadband service for selected urban customers, aimed at appeasing those who are frustrated with slow or unreliable copper broadband.

The company says Home Wireless Broadband will progressively be made available in urban areas across the country, targeted specifically for customers who are low to moderate broadband data users and have poor or no access to reliable broadband services.

Spark Home, Mobile and Business CEO, Jason Paris, says the service will be a welcome solution for many broadband customers.

“The reality of older copper network technology, which most New Zealanders still rely on for their broadband, is that customers who live a long way from important network equipment or who are connected by deteriorating copper lines will always struggle to get decent broadband,” Paris says.

“While fibre broadband is the preferred solution for customers living in areas where UFB has been rolled out and who use a lot of broadband data each month (such as those on Unlimited plans), our wireless broadband services represent a great new choice for low to moderate data users, giving them fast, reliable and affordable broadband,” he explains.

Using Spark's 4G cellular network customers will be able to get internet speeds similar to those achieved on a 4G mobile device and generally much faster than ADSL, Paris says.

“Home Wireless Broadband is the next step for Spark New Zealand following the successful launch of other wireless broadband services. More than 3000 customers are now using our 4G mobile technology to get fast and reliable broadband services instead of using the traditional copper line network,” he adds.

Today's launch follows a pilot of the service with selected customers and Spark staff in recent weeks, which has allowed the company to fine-tune the customer experience before making the service more widely available.