Rural upgrade draws criticism as lockdown lifts

Rural broadband funding boost fails to excite farmers, users

Government has set aside $15 million to improve rural broadband. A statement issued by Communications Minister Kris Faafoi and Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones says the money will be used to upgrade rural mobile towers and the wireless backhaul connecting towers to the networks.

There will also be money for households to install external antennae to boost reception.

Farmers and Tuanz, the telecommunications users’ organisation, have been quick to complain the funds are nothing like enough to provide much needed upgrades.

Faafoi says: “The government’s aim is to provide access to around 99.8 percent of New Zealanders. However, while that work continues some households in isolated regions require reliable access to broadband services in light of Covid–19 – particularly households with school-age children who need internet access for remote learning. The work brings forward capacity upgrades to meet increased demand for the internet where the urgency is most acute.”

Rural broadband towers at capacity

Many rural broadband towers are either at capacity or are nearly there. Jones says upgrading the infrastructure this way is likely to be the fastest way to provide broadband to rural households that are in the coverage area but where capacity is stretched.

He says: “The government, through Crown Infrastructure Partners, is prioritising the upgrade of mobile towers in rural areas where there are high numbers of school-age children living in households that cannot access the internet.

“This will provide school-age students in remote areas with access to the digital connectivity programme that the government recently rolled out to support distance learning. It means that students, particularly those in low-income rural households, can continue with their schooling in exactly the same way as those in urban areas”.

A drop in the bucket

Tuanz CEO Craig Young says the money is “a drop in the bucket”. He says there are still gaps between the rural broadband experience and that seen by people in urban areas. He says things are worse in a lockdown when children are staying at home."

Young wants the government to commit to a programme ensuring all rural users have the same experience as urban.

He says: “In particular this means further support to the local wireless ISPs to continue to upgrade their networks, and to commit to upgrading the previous and current RBI mobile footprint to the latest technology as quickly as possible.”

Farmers Weekly reports Federated Farmers vice-president Andrew Hoggard says big rural areas still have slow or no internet access. He told the paper: “The vast majority of New Zealanders living in towns and cities have absolutely no idea how bad internet access still is in some parts of the country.”

“If you are looking for a shovel-ready project this would be a good one. The shovels are already in the ground".

Fibre installs, online sales resumes as Level 3 gets underway

Infrastructure builds, fibre installations and online phone sales can all now resume as New Zealand’s pandemic lockdown moves from Level 4 to Level 3.

Geoff Thorn, chief executive of the Telecommunications Carriers Forum says the industry will start working through its order backlog. He says workers will use protocols developed in line with the Ministry of Health Covid–19 Alert Level 3 regulations.

OECD calls for more mobile spectrum

The OECD is calling for governments to temporarily release more mobile spectrum so that carriers can keep up with surging demand during the Covid–19 pandemic. Traffic is up by as much as 60 percent since the start of the crisis.

Another proposal is that governments push to ease domestic interconnection between telcos. The OECD also recommends governments reduce the complexity associated with administering spectrum and suggests governments invest in accelerating the move from copper to fibre to ease pressure on legacy networks.

New Zealand is a member of the international economic policy forum which is largely made up of rich countries in North America and Europe.

InternetNZ reports .NZ soars as lockdown bites

InternetNZ says it has seen a clear rise in requests to .nz web sites and a spike in registrations of .nz site names. The organisation which manages domain name registrations in New Zealand says the number of requests for for .nz domain names has climbed five to seven percent each week since the lockdown started. Government sites have seen a 40 percent increase in traffic.

Vodafone drops 5G premium

Vodafone says it is delaying the $10 a month additional charge for 5G mobile until July 2021. The carrier originally proposed to charge customers extra for the faster wireless data service. Vodafone attempted to charge a similar premium when 4G was first introduced, that was quietly dropped.