New Zealand getting 100Mbps fibre
8th June 2010.
Whilst the main focus here in the UK has been the terrible state of our economy, government debt, and Wayne Rooney's anger management, elsewhere things have been happening too. In its recent budget the New Zealand government established Crown Fibre Holdings Limited to ensure that 75 per cent of all New Zealand residents will get 100Mbps fibre links by 2020.
This state-owned company will take the NZ$1.5 billion and offer it to installers to lay dark fibre, that is unmanaged fibre that is available for any provider to use at a single price. This means that for a much cheaper price than the £28.8billion BT predicted, the NZ government gets a better deal. Kiwi consumers should also benefit from increased ISP competition on this flat rate fibre to bring down their prices too.
Once the ten year run to 2020 is over, Crown Fibre will become a profit driven business which will oversee the network and ensure there are no interoperability issues. This sounds like a very progressive approach without too much public sector drag whilst encouraging the creation of the core inrastructure thats needed. Much better than the Digital Britain report proposing 2Meg for the UK.
Just to re-iterate that's 100Meg downlink and 50Meg uplink fibre all the way for NZ$1.5b (£688.6m). Not £28.8b for a 2Meg downlink. Makes you wonder why other people don't do it like this.
