Download Weekly: Fast broadband for all by 2025

Communications minister Simon Bridges says by 2025 99 percent of New Zealanders will be able to download at 50 megabits per second. The remaining one percent will get downloads of at least 10 mbps.

Bridges was speaking at the 2017 Tuanz Rural Broadband Symposium in Wellington. His keynote speech reviewed progress on government funded broadband projects since work started in 2010, then looked forward to the near future.  

He says the government aims to catapult New Zealand into the top rank of connected nations. “New Zealand moved up the OECD connectivity rankings measuring the proportion of the population with fibre access from 14 in 2015, to 11 in 2016. By the time the existing programmes are complete, we will be in the top five alongside countries like Japan, South Korea and Spain”. 

UFB2 work underway

Bridges says the second phase of the UFB fibre programme has already started with work underway in Hokitika and Hikurangi in Northland. This will see fibre reach another 151 towns and extend to 43 fringe areas in cities and towns that are already covered. He says the UFB2 fibre roll-out will be complete by 2024. 

Meanwhile planning has started on the second stage of the Rural Broadband Initiative. Bridges says tenders closed last month and Crown Fibre Holdings is assessing the responses. He says the goal of the second stage is to extend fast broadband to the greatest number of homes possible.  

It also includes money set aside to improve mobile coverage. This means reducing the coverage blackspots on rural state highways and putting towers in remote tourist locations.

Strong engagement

Bridges says: “I’m pleased with the strong engagement and response to the tender process”. The minister says regional operators have been encouraged to take part in RBI2 and, while technologies have not been specified, there is a preference for open access. 

He says based on what he has seen so far, it looks like the proposals submitted mean the government will be able to “do far more than we anticipated”. 

Bridges hinted that decisions would be made soon telling the audience they won’t have to wait long to find out what happens.

Tech sector wants Ministry for the Future

Technology organisations want a Ministry for the Future after this year's election.

A group of 20 organisations, lead by NZTech, IITP and InternetNZ made the call in a manifesto on Tuesday. The group sent the document to MPs and will use it to lobby in the run-up to the election. 

One demand is for all New Zealanders to have affordable access to reliable, high-speed internet. The group wants this to include the skills and equipment needed to use the services. They say rural and urban internet access should have the same speed, quality and cost.  

More infrastructure investment please

To help fund this the group calls for more government infrastructure investment. At the same time, they want the telecommunications industry to continue investing. It also wants the industry to recognise and help develop a “sound regulatory framework to ensure parity”. 

The group wants New Zealand recognised as a "world leader in equipping citizens for the changing economy". It also wants the nation to welcome immigrants with genuine skills. 

Among the other demands are:

• Expanding technology education in schools. There's also a call for investment to give teachers the skills needed for this to work. 

• A move for public research investment to focus on technology.

• More indirect research funding. The manifesto points out New Zealand doesn't offer research and development tax incentives. 

• Improved government procurement. The group wants to put smaller NZ-based companies on an equal footing with global ones. There's also a call to ask for agile delivery. 

• The group also wants to see a more balanced approach to privacy and security

Industry News:

Hawaiki cable almost complete

Hawaiki Cable says 13,000km of the 14,000km of submarine cable needed to connect Australia and New Zealand to mainland United States is now complete.

The contractor, TE Sub-Com has also made more than 150 repeaters for the project. Cable laying is expected to start next month. The company says the trans-Pacific cable project is on track to be complete by the middle of 2018.  

Remi Galasso, Hawaiki’s CEO says: “We’re very close to completing the manufacturing stage of Hawaiki and are preparing to launch installation in just a matter of months”.  He says the regulatory approvals are also on track.  

Vodafone to sponsor All Blacks 

Vodafone has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with New Zealand Rugby and the All Blacks. As part of the deal the company will develop a new mobile app for the All Blacks and will install new technology in stadiums.

This will be in place ready for the test series against the British and Irish Lions this winter. Fans will be able to replay tries, watch highlights and select alternative camera angles from their phones. Vodafone is already the sponsor of the Warriors NRL rugby league team. 

Only a quarter of IoT projects succeed: Cisco 

A new survey by Cisco has found major obstacles for the Internet of Things. According to the research data, only 26% of IoT projects are considered a success by their organisation, while as many as 60% of IoT initiatives never make it out of the proof of concept stage. 

“It’s not for lack of trying,” said Cisco IoT and applications GM Rowan Trollope. “But there are plenty of things we can do to get more projects out of pilot and to com- plete success.” 

Cisco compiled the data from a survey of 1,845 IT and business decision-makers in the US, UK and India across a range of industries, including manufacturing, local government, retail, hospitality, sports, energy, transportation and healthcare. According to 6 out of 10 respondents, IoT projects looked good on paper but proved much more dif- ficult to implement. The top five challenges for IoT were identified as: time to comple- tion, limited internal expertise, quality of data, integration across teams and budget overruns. 

Of those that succeeded, the key factors to get them over the line were cited as the human elements behind the projects. 54% of the respondents cited collaboration be- tween IT and business as the key factor for success, followed by a technically focused culture in the organisation stemming from “top-down leadership and executive spon- sorships” (49%) and IoT expertise (48%). 

One way to overcome the lack of skills is to engage third party partners. 

“Our study found that the most successful organizations engage the IoT partner eco- system at every stage, implying that strong partnerships throughout the process can smooth out the learning curve,” Cisco said.