Broadband Strategy Options for NZ

http://www.internetnz.net.nz/issues/newzealand/broadband-strategy-options-for-new-zealand/INZ%20stage%202%20report%20-%20final%2010%20December%202008%20-%20public.pdf/view

Final report for InternetNZ.

Cliffs Notes: "Achieving affordable very high-speed broadband connectivity (with an InternetNZ target
of 100Mbit/s for domestic users and 1Gbit/s for commercial users) for 75% of New
Zealand’s population within ten years will require a substantial capital investment."

O RLY?

Basically the whole thing is 'last mile last mile last mile'. Yay. Whoop de fuck. :/

Give Kordia the money and get them to build it out as a single solution including backbone.

They're an SOE, they're great with networks.

They wholesale it, make $150m (at absolute minimum) a year (which is the 50% private investment) off it and the thing is done.

Vector is also an SOE so IMO they should be the only ones competing for it.

Think about how much sky pays for their satellite space alone per year, its in the hundreds of millions, and the money the government spends on Kordia maintaining the Freeview network, just to name a couple. All that investment over the next 10 years should go into paying off the fibre network.

Hrm... is Vector an SOE? Whichever other lines company is the SOE should lay the lines, Kordia the network over top, every other ISP the services.

vector is listed but 80% owned by the AECT , which is you and me

Nah, Vector ain't an SOE. I'm not sure that any of the distribution businesses are state-owned any more - a few of the generator/retailers are, and the backbone provider is but they are all legally barred from owning distribution.
The fact that they reckon an existing utility can do it for so much less than a new build is interesting - not only because of existing ducting but because of existing resource consent.

Not yet 100% convinced that it needs to be end-to-end in one hit/one company. It makes sense to me to have an SOE create the backbone and distribution to a node (exchange or cabinet), but perhaps private investment could pick up from there? But I agree Andrew that wholesaling the whole lot to be retailed would likely be the most efficient way of doing it (shock horror, Govt-backed monopoly is more efficient!)

I think Telecom has a huge role to play here (like it or not). They already have a good start on fibred connections that it would be a waste to just crowd that out.

For sure.

That's from http://www.broadbandmap.govt.nz/map

My main concern is nowhere in there is anything about the fact that we are wanting to ramp the shit up out of this local broadband, but are still a small country a long long long way down a very thin pipe from the vast majority of the content we want to access.

Yeah apparently there's fibre up my driveway according to that (man that's a sweet euphemism, but no, really there is).

I'd really like to see an investment in our connections to Australia, then through to the big Asian hubs and on up to Europe. If this investment is about delivering business benefits I think that's got to be part of it - having strong digital connections into China, Singapore, Japan etc as well as Aus has the most business potential around it I think.
What are our links like through to there like already? All I hear about is the Southern Cross cable up to the US.

Ripping up the landscape and laying fibre to the premise is a major undertaking, more than most people have any real understanding of, I wouldn't like to be the person that has to deal with resource consent and logistics around that.

Still, it must be done eventually...

Once your past that, the real issue is developing and supplying competitive services over the fibre, obviously you would be offering phone, internet and tv packages but they would have to offer some real advantages over existing services to justify the switch.

Media on demand, home business services and video telephony may play key roles here.

We will have most of the country done to the node by 2011, I don't really see the point in laying a fibre network parallel to what Telecom is already doing, I wouldn't think we even have the population to support such a venture. It could run into trouble early and end up a half assed roll out like Telstra's cable network.

My team is charged with moving everyone to the new cabinets when ready, its insane how much coordination is required between various companies to make it all happen, in the new year we will be migrating around 8 cabinets per day, perhaps as many as two or three thousand customers per day will be getting upgraded to ADSL 2+.

Except I'll be well gone by then, kinda glad because it will be mad busy and pretty stressful at times.

Then i'd nationalise (and pay fair value for) Chorus' fibre network to the cabinets and begin replacing copper with fibre.

Yeah, this is Skilling's take on it too. The issue I see is the paying fair value bit - they'll be a variety of different views on what constitutes fair value! A properly setup independent board of expert valuers should do it, but even that would be anathema to National's mindset...