NZ actually took inspiration from our (Australia's) fibre-based national broadband network back in 2010 or so (before the current Australian Government got in a

NZ actually took inspiration from our (Australia's) fibre-based national broadband network back in 2010 or so (before the current Australian Government got in and turned it into an absolute farce - instead of a new fibre network it became an upgrade to the existing old copper network, which is basically a few years off end-of-life, with the change supposed to save billions but that somehow managed to cost just as much money in the end). As a result you can get gigabit fibre in places on their UFB network for a similar price we pay for 50-100Mbps.