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New Zealand is currently in the process of rolling out fibre connections in almost every urban area of the country (target is 87% of households) and the amazing
by kiwidrew 9y ago
New Zealand is currently in the process of rolling out fibre connections in almost every urban area of the country (target is 87% of households) and the amazing thing is that a basic fibre connection is now the same price as an ADSL/VDSL connection.
The government put together a technical specification (e.g. minimum speeds, networking standards, API for service providers) and set a series of coverage targets; then they solicited bids from the private sector to build and operate the network in each region. Funding was in the form of an interest-free loan, and the network operators are required to offer wholesale access to any retail provider. The operators are also prohibited from offering their own retail services.
So in the end, once the loans are paid back, the net cost to the taxpayer is likely going to be less than NZ$1.5bn -- that's gigabit fibre to the home for every non-rural household at a cost of less than NZ$1,000 each!
- boyter 9y agoIf you are going to use New Zealand an example of what to do, then use Australia as an example of what NOT to do. Previous discussions about it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14320121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14320121 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/world/australia/australia-slow-internet-broadband.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/world/australia/australia...
- toomanybeersies 9y agoI've just recently moved from New Zealand to Australia, and I'm shocked at how terrible my internet is here, it's like stepping back a decade, not just poor connection speeds, but poor connectivity as well, it keeps dropping out.
- evanlivingston 9y agoI would be very, very upset if I were forced to pay 750 USD for a fiber connection that didn't even benefit rural households.
- gizmo686 9y agoThat's how government works. Most government programs don't directly benefit every individual citizen; even though they all get funded from the big pot of 'government spending', which is filled by taxes. If you think there is a systematic problem, where a disproportionate amount of money goes to urban centers, and a disproportionate amount of money comes from rural areas, then you have something to complain about; but you shouldn't complain about a single project just because it does not benefit 100% of the population.
- jcims 9y agoEh, if it cost $1250 per household to light up every home in the country, you can bet metro folks would be carping about how much they are paying to cover the much higher per-household costs of rural users.
- zappo2938 9y agoThe most Republican Libertarian TV station on cable is Rural Free Delivery TV named after the United States connecting farmers with free rural delivery. They now hide the history of where the name came from.
- indemnity 9y agoInfrastructure costs money, who knew. $750 for installation to the premise is really, really cheap.
- kiwidrew 9y agoBut the infrastructure (underground ducts, fibre junction boxes, and the GPON fibre) will last for decades, so it's a very reasonable investment to be making.
- Spooky23 9y agoThat’s nothing. You probably pay 10x that for highway capital costs. The benefit of an investment like that is incredible.
- saas_co_de 9y ago> cost of less than NZ$1,000 each! Yes, of course the net cost per household is low when you count 100% of households. Of course you can only do that if you have a military to force people to buy your product whether they want it or not. Other than that it is a perfectly wonderful business model.
- dang 9y agoCan you please stop posting generically ideological and/or unsubstantive comments to HN, especially the flamebaity kind? You've been doing it quite a bit lately, and it's the wrong sort of comment for this site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html