Some of the rural blackspots left in Central Otago by the Government’s high-speed broadband rollout will be filled by a rural internet company, following a Central Otago District Council (CODC) decision to support the venture.
The council’s waste and property infrastructure committee voted this week to lease council-owned sites at Gilligans Gully and the Clyde reservoir to Auckland-based Greenfields Internet at a peppercorn rental of $1 a year.
Greenfields will build towers on the sites to transmit wireless ultra-fast broadband and says the service should be operational by the end of October.
It will provide high-speed broadband to the lower Manuherikia valley including Alexandra, Clyde, Earnscleugh and adjacent areas. Those areas were not going to be covered by the Government’s rollout of ultra-fast broadband (UFB) announced in January, which will bring UFB to Cromwell in 2018, Alexandra in 2020 and Clyde in 2023.
Greenfields primarily uses wireless technology to deliver broadband to homes and businesses in small towns and rural New Zealand.
In the past year it developed infrastructure to service Cromwell and the lower part of the Cromwell basin.It is also planning to build a third tower on a privately owned site at Matangi Station, near Alexandra.
Some councillors asked if it was fair to charge a peppercorn rental to Greenfields when other telecommunications companies and internet providers were paying commercial rates for other council properties. However, councillors heard providers could site equipment on road reserves as of right. There was little difference between a road reserve and the Gilligans Gully and Clyde reservoir properties, and leasing the areas would assist the expansion of high-speed broadband in the district.
Council economic development manager Warwick Hawker said one risk of allowing the lease was Chorus potentially delaying the rollout of UFB to Alexandra and Clyde if there was a wireless competitor for urban business.
But this risk was considered unlikely as Cromwell also has wireless UFB access and was set to benefit from the Government’s rollout in 2018, Mr Hawker said.
Councillors decided to lease the two properties to Greenfields at $1 a year until July 1 2020 and then review the rent.
