Communications and IT Minister Steven Joyce says getting fast broadband to the 25% of us who live outside cities is a priority and has set targets for the roll out of rural broadband.
Within six years he expects:
* 93% of rural schools to receive fibre, enabling speeds of at least 100Mbps, with the remaining 7% to achieve speeds of at least 10Mbps.
* more than 80% of rural households to have access to broadband with speeds of at least 5Mbps, with the remainder to achieve speeds of at least 1Mbps.
Those numbers mean little to me but I understand enough to know it will be an improvement on what we’ve got now. We have wireless broadband which is better than dial up but not nearly as good as we get with WiFi here and overseas.
The internet is an integral part of our business. We get killing sheets from the freezing works and reports from our managers by email; check milk quality and quantity on-line each day; pay wages and most bills and receive most invoices electronically.
Increasing the speed of our connection will save time and reduce frustration in our business leaving time and energy to devote to more productive activities than waiting for downloads.
Providing fibre to the vast majority of rural schools will effectively deliver the capacity to provide faster broadband to the communities they serve. Fibre backhaul is currently the primary limiting factor in the delivery of rural broadband and getting fibre to schools will address that.”
Getting fibre backhaul into rural communities will also allow other technologies such as wireless and cellular to play a larger role in rural New Zealand.
Enabling rural cell phone towers to be connected to fibre will also improve mobile phone services in rural areas.
That will be a much needed bonus which will make doing business easier and also increase safety.
Our staff carry mobiles but reception is variable which is frustrating for those wanting to make calls and people wanting to call them.
Better cell phone coverage will improve communication and also make it easier to locate people and summon help in an emergency.
Improving internet and mobile phone connections will not just benefit existing rural businesses, being able to communicate faster and more reliably with the rest of the world will also provide opportunities for new ones.
Homepaddock 
Isn’t it easy to justify corporate welfare when it’s something you either agree with and/or will benefit from.
But it still doesn’t make it moral, HP.
Perhaps the Nats could have stepped back and allowed the market to do what it does best without interference?
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Sus – I see this as infrastructure like roads and energy where the government has a role, rather than welfare.
But the line between essential services where there’s a role for public funding and non-essential services which ought to be left to the market is blurred – and I admit it’s far easier to regard something as essential if you benefit from state funding for it than if you don’t.
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Thanks for your response, HP. But broadband, preferable as it patently is to dial-up, is not an ‘essential’ service; thus the justification (for state involvement) in this case doesn’t add up.
But gee, there’re good rural votes in it, eh! (I’m the daughter, granddaughter & great-granddaughter of NZ farmers, by the way).
I stand by my last comment: if the govt had moved to free up the market (to make BB easier to get out in the waps) I’d be cheering. But sadly, once again, it’s shown itself to be essentially statist.
Sigh.
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Yeah im agree with Sus … 😀
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For a business to run effectively, better connectivity is a minimum what government can give us. We also face problems with our networks sometimes and it becomes deeply frustating, especially when you know that if due care is not given to a particular client, he’ll gladly sign the competitor.
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What else would you have the government “give us”?
No, Nancy. For business to run effectively, govt needs to get out of the way.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
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We do need some basic infrastructure, don’t we? When the government is collecting taxes, in spite of all the issues, why it must not provide us what today’s businesses need?
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