Far North District Council chief digital officer Tom Frost described the benefits of the resolution to Northlanders as “huge”.
“Access to affordable, fast and reliable internet for all is key to unlocking the potential of the Far North and narrowing the digital equity divide in Aotearoa,” Frost said.
Frost said the council’s many digital kaupapa - including its “vital” Northing but Net programme - would help ensure Far North residents have access to ultra-fast broadband and also support them to “acquire the tools and skills to thrive in an online world”.
According to the programme’s 2020 strategy, only 56 per cent of Northland homes had mobile reception.
Frost said that number had increased to 64 per cent by the end of 2022.
The plan sought to provide universal service and access, push for fibre, address mobile blackspots and make school and marae digital hubs.
Far North Kahika (Mayor) Moko Tepania said the connection delay had put everyone “on the back foot”, and he celebrated its resolution.
“Following on from the crazy weather we’ve been having, people are needing to work from home a lot of the time, and the need for connectivity has never been greater,” Tepania said.
“It’s been awesome to see the complete change, the turnaround, getting those extra crews in.”
Chorus said wait times were now “back to where they should be” thanks to successful recruitment drives for new technicians and the support of central and local government.
When borders reopened early last year, many technicians who had acquired permanent residency in New Zealand returned overseas.
Chorus said they had since worked closely with Immigration New Zealand and its field service partners to attract and train new technicians.
At the turn of the year, telecommunications technicians were added to the Immigration Green List and today, technician numbers are almost back to pre-Covid levels.
Chorus fibre connect manager Cindy Duck acknowledged the frustration faced by Far North customers while the company worked non-stop for over a year to get on top of the “unacceptable” fibre connect times.
“If you have fibre available to your home or business, now is a good time to place an order,” Duck said.
But the question of access to fibre in Northland remains a complex one.
Chorus’ senior communications advisor Rory O’Sullivan said ultra-fast broadband was currently available to 87 per cent of the country’s homes and businesses.
For the remaining 13 per cent outside the fibre connect footprint, the cost of connection would range from a few to tens of thousands of dollars.
“There’s a significant amount of civil works, trenching, consents, traffic management and human resource involved in getting fibre from a main road to a rural property,“ O’Sullivan said.
“Many rural New Zealanders have been struck by how expensive it is.”
O’Sullivan said the cost of connecting a premises to fibre would depend on its distance from the road, the density of properties in an area and the distance from the exchange, but more complex builds would also require a design and price on application approach.
He said Chorus’ Rural Broadband Initiative focused on building new infrastructure to reach priority users such as rural schools, libraries, cell sites, hospitals and medical facilities.
“Fibre is also available to eligible farms, homes, businesses and marae adjacent to new duct routes where we have dug trenches and installed new ducts, but you’ll need a trench dug from the road to your premises.”
