Still a rough deal for rural New Zealand

Rural Women vice president Fiona Gower says under-investment in telecommunications needs to be addressed. PHOTO/FILE

Rural residents deserve better telecommunications services, a leading advocate says.

Rural Women New Zealand's submission to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's review of the Telecommunications Act applauded plans for a new regulatory approach to wholesale telecommunication prices.

However, the group expressed disappointment that the review did not address the issue of under-investment in telecommunications.

"We feel strongly that a key goal of the review should include bringing rural broadband speeds up to the same standard as urban speeds," vice-president Fiona Gower said.

"While considerable progress has been made through the government's Rural Broadband Initiative, the reality for rural and remote users is that the current state of the network remains poor.

In addition, it is concerning that the government is directly funding UFB deployment in urban areas but it is not actually putting any funding into rural areas as part of the RBI." It continued to be funded by the industry through the telecommunications development levy.

Ms Gower also claimed that the end-user impact of the proposed utility-style pricing regulation remained unclear.

"Primarily our members want internet and phone prices to remain affordable, while also encouraging wholesale network operators to invest appropriately in improving rural infrastructure," she said.

"We are concerned about how changes to wholesale prices will be treated by retail service providers and reflected in retail prices."

The review also proposed exploring options for promoting competition in the mobile market.

"Mobile coverage is seriously lacking in rural areas, despite the fact that these days it is considered a basic lifeline in emergency situations," she said.

RWNZ's submission encouraged the government to proceed with options that encouraged greater infrastructure sharing and competition between mobile network operators.

It also suggested that additional government stimulus might be needed to fund further investment by mobile network operations in the most uneconomic areas of the network.