{"id":505895,"date":"2026-07-02T08:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/505895\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T08:44:11","slug":"napier-based-telco-nows-closure-follows-24-years-of-success-founding-chairman-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/505895\/","title":{"rendered":"Napier-based telco NOW\u2019s closure follows \u201824 years of success\u2019, founding chairman says"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOW has about 15,000 residential customers around New Zealand to whom it mainly provides broadband internet services, and about 3000 business customers to whom it provides broadband and mobile phone services. <\/p>\n

Mercury informed staff this week<\/a> that NOW would be wound down over the next nine months and closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 70 NOW staff across Hawke\u2019s Bay, Christchurch, Tauranga, and Hamilton are impacted,\u201d Craig Neustroski, Mercury\u2019s chief strategy and transformation officer, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is obviously tough news for the NOW team, and we\u2019re committed to supporting the NOW team through this process with care and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neustroski did not say how many of the 70 staff were in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring consultation we will be exploring redeployment opportunities where possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as its Napier office, NOW has a support team and office in Christchurch.<\/p>\n

Mercury has no plans to shut down its broadband internet operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan is to migrate NOW\u2019s residential customers to Mercury,\u201d Neustroski said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadband and telco services will still be provided to residential customers through Mercury.<\/p>\n

\u201cNOW will help its business customers transition to new providers.\u201d<\/p>\n

White, from Hawke\u2019s Bay, is still the chief executive of NOW.<\/p>\n

He declined to comment on the closure, other than to say \u201cour priority is looking after our people and our customers\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Sam Deller founded Airnet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Airnet\u2019s original chairman Craig Foss said Deller and other visionaries \u201csaw the opportunity\u201d to provide fast internet communications in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201c[That] removed companies\u2019 excuses not to be in Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey could be anywhere in the world, in fact, and have an office in Hawke\u2019s Bay,\u201d Foss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what it was at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is 24 years of success, and well done to everyone that got us to this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really unfortunate that the current owners are choosing to rationalise out of Hawke\u2019s Bay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NOW has about 15,000 residential customers around New Zealand to whom it mainly provides broadband internet services, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2782,2840,74,15408,138,34518,15364,37462,651,17163,7803,63826,359,232,15220,211625,111,139,32219,69,1118,13420,312,3502,65984,102,1530,80],"class_list":["post-505895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-2782","tag-across","tag-after","tag-almost","tag-business","tag-centres","tag-century","tag-chairman","tag-close","tag-closure","tag-follows","tag-founding","tag-internet","tag-jobs","tag-line","tag-napierbased","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nows","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-quarter","tag-says","tag-success","tag-telco","tag-with","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}