For five years, representatives from across the telecommunications industry have come together to discuss the issues around rural broadband at the TUANZ Rural Broadband

Symposium.  Telcos, suppliers, user groups and lobbyists talked about the economics which have always been “difficult” and the “leap of faith” benefits.

In previous years, the symposium was about the need for the networks, fibre and wireless.

With those networks now being rolled-out, the discussion last week was around how they would be used. A highlight was the Keynote address from Dr Tim Williams, author of “Connecting Communities - the Impact of Broadband on Communities in the UK and its implications for New Zealand.  Tim's main message was that local government would be one of the primary drivers in the coming digital society.  He saw local government eServices being built on the four aspects of digital inclusion, open data, ICT infrastructure and technology.

When asked what entry level speed he thought was necessary for inclusion in the digital society, he made two points.  First was that as we come to understand what the urban ultra fast broadband can achieve, the rural minimum speed of 5Mbps would be found lacking.  He thought 'a few tens of Mbps' would be the minimum.  He also made the point that a fixed broadband service based mobile broadband networks could not be scaled up to higher speeds as innovations brought more advanced services.

Dr Murray Milner, Chair of the National Health Board, gave some alarming figures on the rate of increase in New Zealand's spend on health.  Reigning in that spend is clearly one of the drivers of the government's commitment to its $1.8Bn broadband investment.  Murray pointed out technical issues meant that rural areas would have a lesser standard of service as well as a more expensive service because of the different products offered over each network.

Dr Milner was also asked about minimum broadband speeds for Tele-health services.  Tele-health includes services such as in-home health monitoring (for example heart rate) that require speeds "greater than ADSL2" and that upload speeds needed to be the same as download speeds.  By government design, most rural people will not be able to receive the same level of remote tele-health services that urban people will get.

The education sector is a key driver of fast broadband.

Marg McLeod from the Ministry of Education talked about "the long tail" in education and improving outcomes for rural learners.   She argued that traditional teaching methods don't engage those in "the long tail" and a new approach that gets through to them was essential.  Fast rural broadband enabled such new approaches.  One example, Mathletics, is receiving rave reviews because it engages students in learning maths skills.

So who is in the long tail? Mainly Maori and Pacific Islanders children.

Antony Royal, a member of Nga-Pu-Waea (the National Maori Broadband Working Group) talked about the changing face of our workforce. Currently the unemployment rate among Maori and Pacific Islanders is more than double the national rate.  But by 2026 the median age of European New Zealanders will be 46 years compared to Maori and Pacific Islanders at 23 years. Drastic action around Maori education and employment is needed now if we are to support future retirees and broadband services focused on Maori is therefore, justified.

The greatest highlight for me, was Chorus announcing that they were contemplating making all of their rural fibre cables open-access.  Open access fibre is a pre-requisite if those communities without a school are to get fast broadband services.  Good on ya Chorus!