Rural Broadband Initiative
The government is committed to a step change in the standard of rural broadband services. The Government’s objectives are to:
- connect 97 percent of schools to fibre, enabling speeds of at least 100 Mbps, with the remaining three percent to achieve speeds of at least 10 Mbps (“the rural schools objective”); and
- improve coverage of fast broadband services so that 97 percent of New Zealand households and enterprises are able to access broadband services of five Mbps or better, with the remaining three percent to achieve speeds of at least one Mbps (“the rural community objective”).
On 10 September 2009, Communications and Information Technology Minister Hon Steven Joyce announced targets for the roll-out of broadband to rural customers [link to Beehive website].
On 29 September 2009, the Minister released [link to Beehive website]the Rural Broadband Initiative discussion document and a TSO reform discussion document for public comment. A total of 67 submissions were received on the rural broadband proposal.
On 16 March 2010, the Minister announced [link to Beehive website] the final proposals for the government's Rural Broadband Initiative and reform of the Local Service TSO.
On 22 April 2010, the Minister released an Expression of Interest for the Rural Broadband Initiative.
The Government has received 39 expressions of interests for the Rural Broadband Initiative. Interest has come from infrastructure companies from New Zealand and abroad, and includes nine substantial expressions of interest covering the entire country.
The Ministry will not be publishing the expressions of interest or information about the parties as this is a competitive tender process.
Next steps
The government expects to release the first Requests for Proposals for the Rural Broadband Initiative in August 2010. It is envisaged that allocating funding to successful bidders will start before the end of the year.
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