I’ve been thinking a lot about broadband. Don’t switch off, keep reading because it’s more important than you might think.

We all want faster and better internet connections, but broadband is so much more than that. It’s New Zealand’s future. For the delivery of voice services yes. But there’s so much more to it.

Health, education, energy and media services are all likely to come via that new highway sooner than we think. But only if the government takes charge of it and makes sure there is public investment in the sort of sort of services that will benefit the majority of New Zealanders, and in how they will be delivered equitably.

Because the industry cannot and will not deliver the services on its own.

The advent of convergence across broadcasting and all our media is taking telecommunications out of its comfort zone.

The reality is, delivering broadband to New Zealand homes, business, schools and hospitals is not just about voice and internet services.

It’s about infrastructure, core infrastructure, that will enable other services to converge via the fibre. Of course broadband is not just fibre. It’s also  wireless and satellite services. But fibre means energy services can be delivered to your home and your smart meter (if we get the right ones) will be able to regulate your appliances to save power and keep your house running.

And we can deliver a range of social services  via broadband that will benefit our country socially and economically and transform our society. But it’ll take vision, leadership and public investment. Not just at the base infrastructure level. Which is where we’re at right now.

There are also huge potential environmental benefits both through Teleworking and real-time environmental monitoring.

The benefits for agriculture are enormous too, think about every farm being directly connected to our RS&T system. The list goes on.

Respected telecommunications analyst Paul Budde puts it like this:

In order to make this work, the government – being the linchpin in most of these sectors – will now have to make a firm commitment to sectors such as healthcare, and applications such as smart grids, using this infrastructure… it’s not just about high-speed internet… industry leadership will be a crucial factor in moving telecoms beyond telephony and broadband access.

I think the Ministry of Economic Development gets that. It’s still a bit hard to tell because despite all the announcements in recent weeks, there’s still quite a few questions that are unanswered. And I’m not sure that they’ll be able to do a lot more than pay lip service to these aims in the short term. But I have some hopes.

But I’m yet to see any signals that the government really understands what’s at stake.

Worryingly, I don’t think Treasury gets it. Just as worryingly, Telecom doesn’t get it. And that’s a big pity. Telecom is our biggest telco, it’s got a national network providing land-line telephone services to all New Zealanders. It also provides internet and mobile services. It’s been rolling out broadband.

But it appears to see itself and its future (short term because I don’t think Telecom is really thinking long term) as trying to maintain its market share as a telco.

And I say, it’s time to think outside the square, Telecom.

I think there are a range of other companies, utilities, not traditionally part of the telecommunications industry who are able to see a bigger picture and a bigger future where broadband is a vehicle. It’s not the end game.

I hope the government is able to do that too.