Broadband expansion offers little for Golden Bay
The Government’s latest promise of improved broadband service nationwide offers little more than false hopes for frustrated internet users in the Bay.
Details of upgrade policy are still being released, but it’s now known that less than $40 million of the $1.5 billion package will be earmarked for rural regions, with Golden Bay looking increasingly likely to miss out completely.
There are two parts to the new policy: the rollout of ultra-fast broadband to schools, hospitals, businesses and 75 per cent of homes in major urban areas, which will be followed by a “commitment” to rural broadband. It will be up to the Crown Fibre Investment Company and local fibre companies (when they are finally set up) to determine what will go where and when.
Collingwood Area School principal John Garner believes the $40 million allocated to rural New Zealand is a joke. “For a start, proportionally it should be closer to around $400 million if it’s to upgrade 25 per cent of the population, not $40 million. The bulk of the money is going to the cities. Here we are, on the verge of interactive internet, Web 2 they’re calling it, the biggest learning tool our kids could have access to, and it’s effectively being denied us. Even Motueka schools have fibre-optic access which gives them around 70 megabytes per second and we only get five, if we’re lucky.”
Currently, Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) – basically broadband sent down existing copper cables – is available in Golden Bay through Telecom (marketed as Jetstream), but only in close proximity to Takaka and Collingwood, and soon at Ligar Bay thanks to an upgrade of their “cabinet” after two petitions from locals. The most-used option for subscribers outside those areas has been to sign up for wireless internet from one of the two main Internet Service Providers – Pacific.Net or Farmside – and get a dish installed on their house. On top of varying start-up fees, the ongoing cost for these can be anywhere between $56 and $200 a month. Some co-operative users can then install a WiFi-max box ($150 average) to bounce the signal onto neighbours within clear view up to 2km away.
Bryan Leslie, general manager of Pacific.Net, says his company is assessing new opportunities to extend their coverage in Golden Bay, having added Patons Rock, Rangihaeata, and Puramahoi within the last year.
“Although conceptually we can extend our network anywhere in Golden Bay, we are reliant on clusters of customers to make the investment viable. For this reason we are always receptive to community partnerships where, in the absence of Government funding, we can share the costs of network extension with the households or businesses requiring internet. This becomes a win-win for everyone and will be especially appealing when we introduce our phone service over broadband to Golden Bay customers in the near future. This means customers do not need to be reliant on Telecom at all.”
Golden Bay’s basic problem comes down to the absence of a fibre-optic network, where vast amounts of high definition data can freely flow. In the Government’s latest plan, users in 12 main centres will get access capability of around 100 megabytes/second. Galen King of Lucid Design last week conducted daily speed tests for his broadband usage and found it was running between 4.9 and 5.0 megabytes/second most mornings, which then plunged to around 1.0 megabytes by the time school got out. “Takaka township is overloaded; it’s desperate for an upgrade. Running a business that depends on the internet with speeds this slow is a real handicap.”
Despite rumours, a Telecom spokesperson denied the existence of any fibre-optic cable link between Takaka and Collingwood, and said they have no current plans to upgrade the existing copper cable to fibre.
“We are in the process though of gaining landowner approvals to lay a fibre-optic cable from Motueka to Takaka to deliver ADSL2+ broadband speeds to customers within the Takaka township.”
In the meantime, we continue to hear perplexing announcements from politicians on the issue. Last week, West Coast-Tasman MP Chris Auchinvole put out a press release claiming the West Coast part of his electorate had “97 per cent access to broadband”, citing a 2007 West Coast Development Trust report. When queried, his office admitted that “access to broadband doesn’t necessarily give you access to high-speed broadband”.
For sure, the issues and obstacles around broadband provision in rural areas present a different set of challenges than those encountered in cities. To this end, Minister of Communications Steven Joyce is expected to make an announcement in several weeks on how the Government will meet those challenges.
Perhaps the biggest irony for Golden Bay is that we were in line for a big upgrade, but Labour’s Broadband Investment Fund that was driving it was axed when National came in and instituted its own broadband initiative, which some critics say is just a duplicate of Labour’s plan anyway. Golden Bay seems to have got dropped in the process.
Gerard Hindmarsh
