$300m bill for rural broadband, Govt will fund 'some'

The $300m need for rural broadband will be paid for by a mix of government and private funds. Photo / Kenny Rodger

The Government says $300 million needs to be spent getting rural New Zealanders connected with broadband.

It wants 25 per cent of those living in rural areas to have access to broadband soon, Communications Minister Steven Joyce announced today.

He said the $300m would be a "mix of public and private funding" and the Government was expected to announce how much it would spend next week.

Mr Joyce said no private partners had been approached yet.

Many rural households were coping with dial-up speeds which was "not good enough in the 21st century", he said.

Over 80 per cent of rural households should have broadband access of at least 5 megabytes per second (Mbps) and the remainder at speeds of at least 1Mbps within six years, Mr Joyce said.

Ninety-three per cent of schools will receive fibre, enabling speeds of at least 100Mbps and the remaining will have at least 10Mbps.

"Providing fibre to the vast majority of rural schools will effectively deliver the capacity to provide faster broadband to the communities they serve.

"Enabling rural cell phone towers to be connected to fibre will also improve mobile phone services in rural areas."

The Government was working "with urgency" to deliver higher speeds in rural areas, he said.

Internet NZ spokesman Jordan Carter said today's announcement filled a "worrying gap".

"New Zealanders' reliance on dial-up has been an embarrassing component in international comparisons of internet access and had limited the economic and social development options."

However, further details on the initiative were needed, Mr Carter said.

Labour MP Clare Curran said questions remained over how the Government would achieve its plan.

Ms Curran sought was seeking clarity over how much of the $300m would be funded by the Government and whether it was on top of the existing $1.5 billion allocated to rollout broadband to 75 per cent of the population.

"What proportion of the $300m is public money? And where is the new money coming from?" she said.

There were also serious concerns that the Government was lining up Telecom to lead the rollout of rural broadband and possibly the rest of the country, entrenching its position as a monopoly.

That would be a "disaster" for New Zealand's communications industry, she said.

The rural announcement follows the Government's $1.5b ultra-fast broadband investment initiative announced earlier this year.

Using public-private partnerships the government wants to deliver ultra-fast broadband to 75 per cent of New Zealanders within 10 years.

That 75 per cent was based in the 25 biggest cities and towns.

- NZPA