Hawke’s Bay-grown telco NOW will see its brand ‘retired’ over the next nine months, with the loss of roughly 70 jobs across four locations.

Mercury, 100% owner, made the announcement this past week, saying it was just shutting down the brand, not the services. Not sure how that squares with job losses.

The company started out in 2002 as a small rural wireless internet provider servicing a few happy Hawke’s Bay locals … like me.

When the Belfords arrived in Hawke’s Bay in 2005, the original small wireless internet provider was called Airnet, founded by Sam and Ben Deller.

Hamish White, coming from marketing roles at ANZ Bank and Telecom, took over the company backed by local investors Colin Crombie and Neville Smith, and became CEO in 2011, when Airnet had roughly 600 customers. The company officially became ‘NOW’ in 2014.

Over the years since, NOW became a national broadband and telecommunications provider, today with about 15,000 residential and 3,000 business customers. Spark and then Mercury took interest in the company, with Mercury becoming full owner in 2022. At that point the company was valued at $32.4 million.

NOW has dominated its industry in customer service, winning top NZ-wide customer satisfaction awards year after year. One would think that was due entirely to the 70 people soon to depart. That was affirmed by Hamish White’s comment: “More saddened for the staff to be honest – the guys that believed and have brought the care factor each and everyday to our customers and each other.”

But in these days when corporate bureaucracies just reek with customer care (don’t they?!), apparently Mercury knows better.

White has resigned, telling NBR: “But I’m not leaving anytime soon.”