Broadband News
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New Zealand Rural Broadband Plan
17 Mar 2010 | 12.41 Europe/London
New Zealand plans to provide a minimum 5Mbits/s to 97% of rural households and 1 Mbits/s to the remaining 3%.
Schools will get 100M if they fall within the 97% or 10M in the remaining 3%. The plan is to use schools as the catalyst for bringing fibre connections to the rural communities while ensuring that households also benefit.
Telecom New Zealand will be responsible for delivering the plan under the Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSO) which will provide NZ$252million (£117m) of funding over six years. Shortly after the announcement Telecom New Zealand warned it may make a financial loss of up to NZ$56m per year over the next three years, presumably as a result of the investment it will be required to make on top of the levy funding.
The TSO is funded by a levy on a range of telecom providers based on their market share. TNZ has a 70% market share and is the primary recipient of TSO funds.
A separate plan for urban broadband fibre connections was announced last year.
[ NZ Government ]
Schools will get 100M if they fall within the 97% or 10M in the remaining 3%. The plan is to use schools as the catalyst for bringing fibre connections to the rural communities while ensuring that households also benefit.
Telecom New Zealand will be responsible for delivering the plan under the Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSO) which will provide NZ$252million (£117m) of funding over six years. Shortly after the announcement Telecom New Zealand warned it may make a financial loss of up to NZ$56m per year over the next three years, presumably as a result of the investment it will be required to make on top of the levy funding.
The TSO is funded by a levy on a range of telecom providers based on their market share. TNZ has a 70% market share and is the primary recipient of TSO funds.
A separate plan for urban broadband fibre connections was announced last year.
[ NZ Government ]