At a glance

  • Chorus says a data centre operator can buy TimeSync, its fibre-delivered time signal, for its own infrastructure from early 2027, delivered to a defined customer location.
  • Passing the service on to tenants "would depend on the technical design and commercial arrangements", Chorus strategic sales lead Alex Fang told Data Centres NZ.
  • Datacom, Spark and CDC's published colocation pages carry no timing product, and Equinix documents its own Precision Time service across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific.
  • Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are the footprint, and Chorus says it "can consider extending the service as customer demand develops and the business case supports it".
  • Fang says power and connectivity "remain the primary anchors of site selection", with precise timing "increasingly important" alongside them.

Chorus sets the scope of TimeSync for data centres

Chorus, New Zealand's largest fixed-line network operator, announced TimeSync on 4 August 2026, to be introduced progressively from early 2027 in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. TimeSync is a time signal sold over fibre.

Mobile networks, trading systems and distributed databases each need their clocks to agree with everyone else's to within millionths of a second, and many of them get that from GPS satellites. TimeSync takes the time from the atomic clocks at the Measurement Standards Laboratory in Lower Hutt, which keep official New Zealand time, and sends it to the customer over Chorus fibre, with Nokia supplying the technology. A data centre doing it the current way puts a satellite antenna on the roof, runs a cable to a reference clock in the rack, and maintains both. Chorus is offering to deliver the same reference down the fibre already reaching the building, sold as an add-on to its fibre products or on its own.

Data Centres NZ asked Chorus whether a colocation operator can package it for tenants the way it packages power and cross-connects, or buy it only for its own equipment.

A data centre operator can buy TimeSync for its own infrastructure, and any model for supplying it to tenants would depend on the technical design and commercial arrangements. Alex Fang, strategic sales lead at Chorus, set that out in written responses on 4 September 2026, a month after Chorus named the cities and the launch window.

"TimeSync is a network service delivered to a defined customer location," Fang said. "A data centre operator could purchase TimeSync for its own infrastructure. Any model under which the operator makes the service available more broadly to its tenants would depend on the technical design and commercial arrangements."

Datacom, Spark and CDC's colocation pages carry no timing product

Datacom publishes a colocation menu running from A+B power rails and seismic bracing to telco cross-connects, Spark Wholesale's runs from rack and cage space to meet-me rooms and carrier-neutral interconnection, and CDC lists data centre services and network services. Equinix documents a Precision Time product serving customers across the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific.

Auckland is one of the three TimeSync launch cities and holds most of New Zealand's roughly 208MW of operating colocation capacity along with both hyperscaler cloud regions. The colocation operators with tenants to sell to are concentrated inside the launch footprint.

Spark, One NZ and 2degrees buy Chorus fibre wholesale

Spark, One NZ and 2degrees buy their fibre from Chorus wholesale, and mobile operators put their cores and aggregation sites in data centres. Chorus's launch release names "delivering secure and scalable mobile connectivity" among the applications TimeSync supports, and chief technology officer Martin Sharrock said the network is designed so precise timing can be delivered consistently across the country, which "makes it easier for mobile operators and businesses to adopt the service".

Fang puts the footprint at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch

"The initial launch establishes TimeSync in New Zealand's three major metropolitan centres," Fang said. "The platform has been designed so that Chorus can consider extending the service as customer demand develops and the business case supports it."

On whether timing belongs on a site-selection checklist, Fang put it behind power and connectivity. "While power and connectivity remain the primary anchors of site selection, we're seeing precise sovereign timing becoming an increasingly important part of the digital infrastructure stack," he said. "Forward-thinking operators across a broad range of verticals are already treating resilient and high-precision timing as a non-negotiable element in their system and network designs."

Datagrid's Makarewa campus in Southland started earthworks in August 2026. Contact Energy and CDC proposed a 250MW site at Stratford on 10 August 2026. Both sit outside that footprint. Chorus's release lists financial timestamping, electricity networks, transport systems and emergency services among TimeSync's applications, so data centres are one of several sectors whose demand would feed the business case for extending it.

Chorus files TimeSync under adjacent services in its FY26 result

Chorus reported its FY26 result on 24 August 2026. Net profit after tax was NZ$37 million, against NZ$4 million a year earlier. Chief executive Mark Aue described TimeSync on the investor call as "a precision timing service now moving into build phase", and chief operating officer Drew Davies said of the new projects that "it is not a material driver of the 2027 CapEx".

The media release lists TimeSync among "adjacent infrastructure services" launched over the year, alongside Express Connect, the data centre connection product now selling in eight data centres, and Unified Transport. The results presentation describes the project as making New Zealand the first country to build a wholesale precision timing network.

TimeSync will be sold as an add-on to Chorus's existing fibre products and as a standalone service, and those fibre products sit under a Commerce Commission price-quality path that caps Chorus's maximum revenues. Fibre uptake reached 75.9 per cent of serviceable addresses in FY26, which Aue said brings the company's aspiration of 80 per cent by 2030 "another step closer".

The accuracy class, the price and how long the service holds accuracy through a fault remain unpublished.