Mike Lancaster, the company’s wireless champion, says 15 WiMax sites have been constructed and will be live in the next two months.

WiMax is a wireless technology that allows customers to bypass the copper network. Both voice and data products can be delivered via a single connection and users can expect maximum wireless speeds of 10Mbps.

The Compass deployment uses licensed 3.5GHz spectrum. The company has chosen Alvarion as its technology partner and is using its BreezeMax product, which has been used in over 250 installations in more than 100 coutnries.

Compass already has around 50 paying customers connected to a WiMax site in Otahuhu and Lancaster says the Otahuhu site could potentially serve a few hundred customers.

“It depends on the usage profile of each of the customers, the time of day when they’re doing it,” he says. “We have the capability to expand the site or drop in additional sites to pick up hotspots in the area.”

Residential plans offering voice and data services start at around $50.

Lancaster says this is the first WiMax network to be deployed on a nationwide scale in New Zealand.

“A couple of operators have set up small networks or trial networks but something stretching from Auckland down to Dunedin initially, I think, is pretty impressive.”

He says the deployment is a multi-million dollar investment for Compass.

“We have spent a few million so far and we intend to spend quite a few million more, but it really depends on the success of it, what support we get from local communities and landlords in terms of accessing the sites cost effectively and being able to get cost effective backhaul,” he says.

Compass product marketing manager Will Lai says the initial sites, in addition to Otahuhu, are located in Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, Nelson and Tauranga followed by Blenheim, Ashburton, Timaru and Oamaru.