New Zealand’s first fibre-only broadband company MyRepublic has this week launched with an invitation to all Kiwi homes to try out its 100Mbps unlimited fibre broadband service for three months for free to customers who sign up or register before 15 November 2014.

MyRepublic is a Singaporean challenger brand offering that has grown to be the third largest ISP in its home country. Earlier this year, MyRepublic in Singapore became the first operator in South-East Asia to offer consumer fibre broadband plans of 1 Gigabit per second (1Gbps) at mass market prices – a move that has made Singapore’s internet access one of the fastest and most affordable in the world.

MyRepublic has stated that it intends to do the same here in New Zealand. After its success in Singapore, the company knows how to compete against the bigger guys and how to sell fibre into a market that is new.

According to Vaughan Baker, MyRepublic’s New Zealand managing director, “MyRepublic is purpose-built to unleash the potential of the UFB. We engineer the network using its unique capabilities to provide the best online streaming and gaming experience possible. Nobody else is doing that. By leveraging the UFB, we’re actually able to customise the internet experience for each and every customer.”

The move reflects the growing trend for New Zealanders to consume content online. August saw Spark launch Lightbox television and Orcon offer a Global Mode that allows access to previously blocked sites like Netflix and BBC iPlayer (22 percent of its customer base now visits these sites on a daily basis).

TUANZ CEO Craig Young, who was fresh in the CEO seat this week, said TUANZ welcomes the arrival of MyRebulic in the market, particularly because it is a fibre-only offering and TUANZ is keen to see consumers take up the UFB network. He said he hoped it would also help to push other ISPs to be more competitive on fibre pricing and said he expects consumers to choose their UFB provider based on price not brand recognition.

“I think they will rattle a few cages,” he said of the newcomer. “”We’re excited to see them enter the market, we think it’s healthy for competition that they are here and certainly it’s exciting that they are only ofefering fibre and we hope they take what they’ve learnt in Singapore and bring them here as well.”

While the UFB has been implemented for some time, a majority of Kiwis have yet to experience Ultra-Fast Broadband, or witness the transformation of New Zealand into an intelligent nation contributing to the global economy powered by world-class internet connectivity. It will be interesting to follow the progress of MyRepublic as it launches in a market where Big Pipe is currently offering an Auckland only naked UFB product at $79 pm for 100/20 UFB (which is cheaper than VDSL) and Orcon is mounting a campaign against its competitors, accusing them of artificially slowing internet speeds to regulate network traffic and minimise bandwidth costs – something it says it refuses to do it its customers.

MyRepublic’s secret weapon, however, may not be its fibre-only status, but its traffic prioritisation options that allow users to specify they type of traffic they would like to give top priority, e.g. video streaming data or gaming data.