Open Letter from Minister Cunliffe to the Telecommunications Industry

At the recent Digital Future Summit 2.0, I challenged the private sector to explore alternative mechanisms for stimulating investment in advanced broadband infrastructure and indicated that the government was willing to consider a range of policy options to facilitate increased investment.

The government's long-term vision is for fibre-to-the-home, with an aggressive deployment of fibre-to-the-node by 2012 seen as a more immediate goal for broadband infrastructure. Building on the goodwill that emerged from the Summit, I would like to invite you to participate in a dialogue about the steps that the industry and the government can take to improve the environment for investment.

I am aware that it may be difficult to build an industry consensus on how to further incentivise infrastructure investment in some aspects of the network, particularly in light of some of the recent concerns expressed by access seekers regarding Telecom's cabinetisation plans. However, I would like to encourage the industry to identify areas of mutual interest where co-operation may be possible and areas where the government may be able to usefully assist.

In order to progress this work, the Ministry of Economic Development has drawn up some ‘strawman' Industry Guidelines to help frame industry discussions. These Guidelines are largely focused on the government's objectives and the steps the government may be willing to take to support industry investment proposals, with the substantive issues to be subsequently identified and dealt with by the industry.

Much of the recent impetus for this work has come from a combination of the work of the Growth & Innovation Advisory Board and the New Zealand Institute. I am keen for both Stephen Tindall and David Skilling to participate in this process and for one of them to facilitate discussions.

I envisage that this process will get formally underway in the New Year and there is likely to be merit in a meeting of senior representatives in January 2008. In the first instance, I would invite your organisation to provide feedback on the Industry Guidelines to Reg Hammond at the Ministry (reg.hammond@med.govt.nz) as soon as practical.

Yours sincerely,

Hon David Cunliffe
Minister for Communications and Information Technology

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