Ultra fast broadband is not be a luxury, but will be critically important to New Zealand's growth prospects, ICT minister Steven Joyce said at the Commerce Commission’s Broadband at a Crossroads conference yesterday.
During a speech in which he reiterated the Government’s commitment to investing $1.5 billion in a fibre roll out, Minister Joyce said ultra-fast broadband will provide New Zealanders with the base infrastructure that will support advanced broadband services, including high-speed, real-time internet connections to the world.
“We are convinced that access to ultra fast broadband will give rise to new enterprise and innovation and spur increased productivity.”
The Government plans to provide 75 percent of New Zealanders access to a fibre-based next generation broadband network within a decade.
For Minister Joyce, ultra fast broadband means network access capability of at least 100 Mbps without contention and in both directions. In general, only fibre will be able to provide this capability, he says.
“Fibre will deliver huge economic benefits for our country in terms of enhanced productivity, improved global connectivity, and enhanced capacity for innovation.”
Minister Joyce cited independent experts who estimate these benefits will be worth between $2.4 billion and $4.4 billion a year.
The Minister said ultra fast broadband is critical for New Zealand as it overcomes the tyranny of distance the country faces.
“Our geographic isolation and the distance between us and our competitors has become even more significant as people think twice about the costs of travel and begin to think about carbon footprints,” he said.
“Ultra fast broadband would put our businesses in meeting rooms around the globe.”
Fibre to schools meanwhile will greatly enhance teaching and learning and will ensure children have access to the same information at the same time as their peers around the world, the Minister added.
Ultra fast broadband will also boost productivity in hospitals and aid medical research, while fibre to the home will create opportunities for home businesses and for people to telecommute, he said.
Huge productivity advances will come from SMEs being able to have large company IT support through software as a service offerings.
Ultra fast broadband at speeds of 100 Mbps or more will ensure New Zealand has the competitive edge it needs to prosper, said Minister Joyce.
“The New Zealand Government believes there is a significant gap between what the market here is currently providing and what we will need it to provide if we are to remain relevant and competitive into the future. Our policy is about bridging that gap.”
Although the copper network has served the country well to date, Minister Joyce said it is now “a Morris minor compared with the Ferrari fibre we need to compete”.
However, if left to the market, the replacement of the bulk of the copper access network with fibre could possibly take more than thirty years, Minister Joyce said.
“As a country, we can't afford to wait that long. The government believes that we need to use ultra fast broadband as a way of getting a competitive advantage over the rest of the world.”
This was a sentiment reflected by various speakers at the conference including TUANZ chief executive Ernie Newman who said the more removed a community such as New Zealand is to the rest of the world, the more it stands to gain from access to next-generation connectivity.