Telecom New Zealand to officially change name to Spark on Aug. 8

Telecom New Zealand will become Spark New Zealand as of Aug. 8, a move that the service provider says better reflects its ongoing movement away from being just another provider of home telephone service to a multi-element service provider.

Simon Moutter Telecom

Moutter

"As a company we've moved far beyond the home telephone," said Simon Moutter, CEO of Telecom New Zealand, in a release. "Spark better represents what we are today--it is all about mobile data, online entertainment, cloud services, the Internet of things, or whatever new technology is around the corner."

Over the past year, the telco has been investing in specific areas such as last mile broadband and cloud services, including its "Ultra VDSL" service. It also purchased data center provider Revera, which provided additional cloud and data center services to Telecom New Zealand's Gen-i services unit.

Under the new name structure, Spark New Zealand will have four main business units and brands: Telecom Retail will become Spark Home, Mobile and Business; Gen-i will become Spark Digital; Telecom Connect will be known as Spark Connect; and Spark Wholesale will be the new name for Telecom Wholesale.

Meanwhile, Spark Ventures will be the new name for Telecom Digital Ventures, a unit that the telco says will be focused on delivering new services and businesses such as Wi-Fi, Internet TV and smart data analytics. 

However, the names of some other business units and brands will remain the same: Revera (business cloud services); Skinny (mobile); Bigpipe (broadband); Qrious (data analytics); Lightbox (Internet TV); and Telecom New Zealand International. 

For more:
- see the release

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