Vision of a mobile, broadband future

David Cunliffe

For the man or woman in the street, David Cunliffe paints a Jetsons-like vision of life five years from now.

"They'll be probably carrying a mobile handheld device that does everything but brush their teeth," the Communications Minister says two days after announcing that he will break open Telecom's monopoly.

"It will have streaming video, it will have a host of business applications, it will turn on all the appliances in their house before they get home. It will probably allow them to do two or three different activities in real time at the same time.

"I think they'll be able to go home and choose a movie and choose their favourite TV programme at the time they want to watch it.

"There will be a more efficient business environment. Their businesses are going to be enabled with higher-speed communications and more access to fast processing on the IT side, everything's going to speed up."

While conceding that faster, cheaper internet will not be a silver bullet for the economy, Cunliffe nevertheless says it will be a key factor in an economic transformation.

"Nobody can tell me we're not underserved, nobody can say we won't benefit hugely from an upswing in broadband."

Under New Zealand's comparatively woeful uptake of broadband, the country has suffered a "cumulative disadvantage" in economic productivity terms by not being able to compete with our OECD peers.

He describes the existing state of broadband services, particularly in Auckland, as embarrassing.

International analysis showed that efforts to increase broadband "have a GDP kick".

New Zealand's annual GDP could increase by as much as $13 billion to $14 billion if the Government's digital strategy targets were met. "Even if it was half that, it would still be a very, very large number."

Cunliffe expects wider uptake of broadband to initially result in an intensification of information and communications technology that would "spread out horizontally right through different sectors".

However it will take time.

"I want to be realistic about it but I want to very clearly state we're moving as fast as we possibly can."

The package announced this week, which includes local loop unbundling and unconstrained bitstream access for Telecom's competitors, was produced in a fairly short period since December.

The Government has already said it will fast-track necessary legislation, introducing it by midyear and getting it through the House by the end of the year or early next year at the latest.

"We'll certainly see market uptake of local loop unbundling by late 2007, early 2008, and reasonably full-scale effect by middle 2008."

Cunliffe says he is heartened by indications from Telecom's rivals such as CallPlus, TelstraClear, ihug and Vodafone of fresh investment plans. A full range of choices across fixed wire, fibre, satellite and mobile would give an important productivity hit.