The question needs to be asked: Is the government serious about deploying high speed broadband in rural areas?

To recap the current situation, in March 2009, the government announced  its wish to “...create a step-change in the provision of broadband services by delivering on an aspirational goal of ultra-fast broadband for the majority of New Zealanders.”

The wish is a key part of the government’s wider strategy to “...increase New Zealand’s global competitiveness, particularly compared to other OECD countries.”

The goal was to “...accelerate the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband to 75% of New Zealanders...” and was supported by government investment of up to $1.5 billion under the UFB initiative.

Rural users were not included in the wish, the goal or the funding support initially provided.  

In September 2009, the $300M Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) was announced.  This was, prompted by the realisation that 16% of the population live in rural areas and contribute 66% of New Zealand’s productive income.

A consequence of the RBI program for rural users was that investment in rural broadband by Telecom Chorus stopped.  Telecom, or any other fibre company, will not invest in rural broadband with the likelihood of free funding coming from the government.

This was despite Telecom’s urgency in rolling out Fibre-to-the-Node infrastructure in towns and cities where competition has resulted in hundred’s of kilometres of urban fibre cable being laid by competitors.  Telecom Chorus’ self-lauded achievements in laying urban Fibre-to-the-Node have been self-funded, confirming the Australian belief that urban fibre can give an adequate return on investment and so does not need government handouts.

Another consequence detrimental to rural users was that access to government funding for rural communities with a “can do it now” attitude disappeared.

To help the now $1.8Bn fund go further and quicker, the government introduced a new process - The Deployment Standards Initiative.  This was aimed at trialling a number of different deployment techniques to determine standards for use around the country.  Enterprise Franklin made a submission to that initiative, outlining the many reasons that Franklin be considered a suitable site for rural pilots.

The government have now considered those submissions and last week released a Requests For Proposals (RFP), inviting proposals for specific pilot projects.  Rural Connect considers this an important initiative because it provided hope for those rural communities that are presently denied broadband access.  The successful pilot programs are required to be completed prior to January 31st 2011 and the hope was to ‘jump the gun’ and get broadband sooner than the otherwise up to 6 years it might take if left to Telecom.  

The reality of the deployment standards RFP is that rural areas are effectively excluded from participating in the pilot programs.  This is because of the requirement that the pilots connect a minimum of 200 connections for aerial fibre cable or a minimum of 50 connections per 1,000 metres of buried fibre cable.  That is one connection every 20m, something that not even urban Pukekohe meets as an average.  The likely outcome of this requirement is that urban areas that already have broadband, will soon also have fibre-based broadband.  And many rural areas will again have to sit and wait for a basic broadband connection.

So the question is:  Is this government really serious about creating a ‘step change’ in broadband access?  Or has it become too hard to work through the Telecom issues in a timely manner?

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