3. The enablers: Connection
3.2 Connection priorities and challenges
Recent regulatory changes have laid the groundwork for more competition within the telecommunications sector and will stimulate investment in broadband infrastructure. The reforms of the past couple of years have been a watershed for the industry as entrants identify new market opportunities and larger telcos ramp up their investment in response to new market pressures. Changes in the telecommunications sector will only accelerate as consumers respond to the availability of new and innovative services.
Through its role as regulator, customer and infrastructure funder, the government will take further steps to improve investment in New Zealand’s broadband infrastructure. There are two key priorities for action:
- Promoting a robust and competitive telecommunications market.
- Facilitating the deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructure.
Targeted actions under these two priorities will support the 2005 Digital Strategy objective of moving New Zealand up the OECD rankings in broadband uptake and the availability of advanced broadband services. Although new investments announced recently will make a difference to broadband performance, the government and business sectors still need to take concerted action to ensure bandwidth is no longer a constraint on New Zealand’s economic and social aspirations.
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FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR TE PAHÜ //////
Te Pahü, a rural and farming community of about a thousand residents southwest of Hamilton, received funding through the Broadband Challenge to establish a wireless broadband service.
At first, many Te Pahü residents could only get poor-quality dial up. Some phone lines were too bad to allow an internet connection at all, and many customers suffered from electric fence interference. After rain, people’s telephones stopped working.
Te Pahü already had a small internet community. This included an email neighbourhood watch and an enewsletter organised through a website, with community information and an events calendar.
After discussions with Velocity Networks, a partner in round one of the Broadband Challenge, and the University of Waikato’s Rural Link, the Te Pahü community was encouraged to apply for Broadband Challenge funding. Community members, especially local businesses, were keen to collaborate on the application, with the aim of providing high-speed internet to the community at a reasonable cost.
The project has been a huge success:
- Households with network coverage can access good-quality broadband at a reasonable cost starting at $45 per month for 512kbps.
- Residents no longer need separate phone lines. For $11 per month, they can access a phone service over the new network.
- Telecom has since installed ADSL broadband in the Te Pahü exchange, so those who live nearby now have this option too.
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It is critical that competition significantly improves, and soon. But encouraging competition is unlikely
on its own to give us the broadband infrastructure needed to transform the economy.
The government’s long-term vision is for fibre-to-the-home. However, the economics for this to occur in the short term are simply too challenging. As an intermediate step, four key infrastructure gaps have been identified where significant levels of new investment are required:
- Fibre-to-the-node infrastructure (FTTN).
- Urban fibre loops.
- Rural broadband infrastructure.
- New Zealand’s international connections.
New Zealand’s progress towards filling these gaps will be measured by:
- the widespread deployment of FTTN, as an intermediate step towards fibre-to-the-home, so that by 2012, 80 per cent of users can access broadband connections of at least 20Mbps and 90 per cent have access to broadband connections of at least 10Mbps
- having open-access urban fibre loops operating in 15 cities and towns by 2012, to support the high bandwidth needs of large businesses, and municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals (MUSH entities)
- improving the coverage of terrestrial broadband, from 93 per cent to 97 per cent of the population by 2012, with more affordable satellite solutions for remote locations
- an additional international cable by 2012, to make New Zealand’s international connections more resilient and improve competition in the supply of international bandwidth
- ensuring all major public institutions, particularly within the health and education sectors, adopt effective demand aggregation strategies that enable the deployment of 1Gbps connections by 2012.
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eRESEARCH IN NEW ZEALAND //////
New Zealand’s research community is essential to innovation. It is responsible for the creation of new technologies and has a key role in supporting new education topics and methodologies.
eResearch is real-time data sharing in research, science and technology using web-based tools and is rapidly developing in New Zealand.
Globally, all researchers need to collaborate better on research and education projects, exchange large volumes of data in real time, and gain access to large scale national and international infrastructure such as super computers. Having an ultra-fast advanced network such as the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network is only part of the picture. KAREN’s main role is to enable research and support tools such as:
- virtual research environments – ‘virtual spaces’ created by information technology tools or systems
- data repositories – online databases containing research data
- grid computing – a group of geographically dispersed computers linked to function as a super computer.
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