Why should we have to wait until 2019 to get ultrafast broadband on fibre?

While in the meantime, we get to pay more for our copper-based services, which won’t improve during that time?

The Bill that Steven Joyce is rushing through parliament will see a price hike of at least five dollars a month on the average phone and broadband bill for many consumers. The effect of his new law is to re-average prices for the current copper based broadband services which means the price of broadband delivered over copper will increase in urban areas by more than 20 percent.

And, it will stifle competition in the copper market, while the vast majority of Kiwis will not be able to access fibre for up to a decade.

As if Kiwis didn’t have enough to worry about with hikes in food, electricity and petrol prices, they now face artificially increased prices for their broadband and phone while the Government presses through with its ill-advised telco laws and hands enormous powers to the Communications Minister as well as to New Zealand’s biggest telco, Telecom.

And, if I read Juha Saarinen right in the NZ Herald today, when we do get fibre, it may very well be much less than what the government said we’d get. Juha somehow got hold of Crown Fibre Holding’s wholesale pricings for fibre.

He said:

Despite the government’s promise that New Zealanders will receive at least 100Mpbs downloads and 50Mbps uploads on the fibre-optic network that will cost tax payers $1.5 billion, the price book shows that the entry-level service runs at more modest 30Mbps downstream and 10Mbps upstream.

Today’s broadband over the country’s ageing copper phone network provides up to 15Mbps downloads and 800kbps uploads.

So Steven Joyce says we’ll all get ultrafast broadband in our homes. By the end of 2019. He says we’ll get 100Mpbs. But it looks as though we’ll get 30Mbps. He says he doesn’t care what the industry thinks, he only cares about consumers.

And yet those consumers will have to pay more for their existing copper based broadband. Possibly until the end of 2019.

Even David Farrar on Kiwiblog thinks it’s questionable. He doesn’t say it’s a dog. But I reckon he thinks it.

How can we progress as a country if we can’t get broadband right? The only organisation supporting the Government’s new laws are Telecom. I wonder why that is?

They’d be wise to have a bit of a rethink on their position.

At some point Steven Joyce might realise he’s the only one in the room.

The end of October is close. There’ve been no definitive decisions on what this government will do about rolling out ultrafast broadband. We are a couple of weeks off being two years since the last election. Still no idea who and how UFB will be delivered to 75% of Nzers!

More questions than answers about the role of Telecom.

I believe Steven Joyce will make some sort of announcement, if not this week, then pretty soon, because he has to. But it will be about laying out broadband around the edges of the big urban centres. And making sure that , before the end of the year, he gets to wear a hard hat and have his photo taken somewhere where fibre is being laid. If he doesn’t, surely the media will start to pay more attention.

Meanwhile, beyond the PR, the facts show we’re slippping backwards.  The third annual broadband study shows despite global broadband quality improving by 24% in one year, New Zealand has dropped back on broadband rankings 3 places; down from 21st in 2008 to 24th in 2010.

This is not good and shows that we are not just standing still in terms of our connectivity with the rest of the world, we’re slipping backwards.

A few observations: We’ve dropped in rankings because others are moving faster. This means other countries are ahead of us in laying our fibre.

We are doing very little in terms of becoming prepared for the Internet applications of tomorrow. In fact, I’d say we have our head in the sand (govt wise).

We need to ask more questions about how good the existing copper network actually is. We have data caps which are increasingly anachronistic and prevent people from increasing their output and accessing new technologies effectively.

Slow progress on the UFB and rural broadband initiaitive aren’t to blame (yet) but they have tempered the enthusiasm to invest what now look like interim solutions.

And what about the importance of mobile broadband? I don’t see a lot of discussion happening about this coming from government. This is despite the fact that we know mobile broadband uptake will overtake fixed in a very short while.

When you consider the list below, NZ has a long way to go to even look as though it’s on the wave.

Too many questions and not enough answers. Meanwhile, NZ slips behind.

Have a look at the list below and consider how well NZ is doing.

The third annual broadband study from Saïd Business School, Oxford University, looks at broadband quality in 72 countries and 239 cities

• 14 countries (1 in 5) already prepared for the Internet “applications of tomorrow”, compared to only 1 country in 2008
• 38 countries, 53% of the total, have conquered the digital quality divide, with less evident differences between the broadband quality inside and outside their main cities, an improvement of 58% in just one year
• Study reaffirms positive link between broadband leadership and innovation economies
• Many emerging economies are ‘leapfrogging’ by focusing on bringing the best broadband to their cities, acknowledging their impact on the economy
• 38 cities already have the broadband quality required for the applications of tomorrow, ready to support smart and connected communities
• Mobile broadband quality has improved significantly, with 10% of mobile broadband users already enjoying similar quality experiences compared to those with fixed-line broadband
• Broadband consumption patterns are diverging, from a basic household requiring over 2 Mbps and consuming about 20 GB per month, to a smart and connected home commanding over 20 Mbps and a consumption of 500 GB per month