Just over a month since Communications and Information Technology Minister Amy Adams joined ultrafast broadband (UFB) partner Chorus and members of the Queenstown community to herald the start of work to build a world-class UFB network in the resort, James Beech asks what the $135 billion project really means for Central Otago and the Queenstown Lakes district.
Snail-paced internet access is 80% of New Zealanders' No 1 "First World problem", according to a Unicef NZ and UMR research survey, but the country is at the dawn of a nationwide effort to fix that, starting with schools, hospitals and businesses.
Holes are being dug for cables by contractors throughout Queenstown and the work will continue for some time.
More than 2000 customers, as well as Queenstown Primary, St Joseph's and Wakatipu High schools, are expected to be covered by the fibre network in Queenstown by July next year.
Government agency Crown Fibre Holdings negotiated with Telecom to roll out UFB between August 2011 and May 2019 to provide residents with internet speeds up to 10 times faster than existing broadband speeds.
A total of six Queenstown schools, 30 healthcare providers and 570 Queenstown businesses are expected to be connected between August 2011 and May 2019.
The Government's UFB initiative aims to connect fibre to New Zealand schools, hospitals, and 90% of businesses by 2016, and links to homes and remaining businesses completed by 2019.
Chorus has the contract to roll out UFB in 24 of the 33 areas set out in the Government's eight-year programme.
The 33 areas for UFB roll-out were selected on forecast population size to the year 2021, provided by Statistics New Zealand, which included Queenstown but not Arrowtown, Wanaka, Cromwell and Alexandra, which will receive urban or rural broadband instead.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Economic Development Group spokesman Britton Broun, of Wellington, said it was "not economically viable" to deliver fibre to every part of New Zealand, "so we have targeted our fastest-growing cities and towns, where the greatest population density means the greatest number of people will benefit".
Arrowtown, Alexandra and Cromwell centres will be able to access fast broadband, with speeds up to 20mbps (millions of bits per second), through the Chorus fibre to the node network, the same level of broadband now available in most city suburbs.
But the Wakatipu roll-out stops short of its largest residential area, Lake Hayes Estate.
Mr Broun said coverage areas were defined through commercial negotiations between Crown Fibre Holdings and local fibre companies - within the overall contractual requirement the UFB roll-out would cover 75% of the New Zealand population by 2019.
"Lake Hayes Estate will receive a minimum peak speed of 5mbps per second rural broadband," he said.
The difference in experiences for the user between UFB and urban and rural broadband boils down to response speed and data-carrying capacity.
Mr Broun said a minimum peak speed of 5mbps was fine for the way most people used the internet, including video conferencing and accessing online video content.
"It is vastly superior to the existing services currently available in many rural areas. Before the rural broadband initiative was launched last year, only about 20% of rural homes and businesses had 5mbps and about half used dial-up," he said. "The initiative will see 86% of the rural community have access to at least a 5mbps peak speed."
Asked if UFB would extend to urban and rural broadband users in Central Otago once the initial eight-year programme was finished, Mr Broun said the Government's focus was on the successful completion of the existing UFB and rural broadband initiative programme.
"There is nothing to stop these networks being added to in the future, perhaps on a commercial basis," he said.
Infrastructure roll-out is the first link in the chain, but consumers will deal with "retail service providers".
Snap is like Telecom, Telstra or Vodafone, but smaller. The privately owned Christchurch-based company of about 70 staff has been in business for 15 years and provides internet and internet services to businesses, schools, health providers and the Government as well as residential customers.
Commercial manager James Koers said ultrafast broadband was being delivered by four separate fibreoptic cable providers with Chorus responsible for about 70% throughout New Zealand.
"We've already had requests from some residential users down there and we're talking to the local high school, so we would expect there are a number of early adopters who would jump on that network as soon as its available."
Fibre offered more data and extra calling features, such as voice mail, caller identification and call waiting, which consumers would pay more than $20 a month extra for on a copper line, he said.
All fibre providers are offering free installation for residential users until the end of this year and possibly into next year to encourage take-up.
Asked what difference fibre would make for Otago internet users compared with what they are currently using, Mr Koers said the new infrastructure performed better, was more stable, was either the same price or cheaper than customers' existing copper connection and fibre opened possibilities.
School pupils could create videos and other large files for sharing quickly and use real-time video conferencing and collaboration around the world.
Switching to fibre was cost-effective and future-proofed use as requirements changed, Mr Koers said.
"There'll be applications come on stream that we haven't even thought of yet."
