6. SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki - King Country) Link to this
to the Minister for Communications and Information Technology
What improvements has the Government announced for rural broadband services?
Hon STEVEN JOYCE (Minister for Communications and Information Technology) Link to this
Today the Government has confirmed its rural broadband plans, which will provide much faster broadband services to rural people across the country. As a result of the Rural Broadband Initiative, 97 percent of all households will have access to broadband services of at least 5 megabits per second within 6 years, with the remainder receiving at least 1 megabit per second. For many remote and not-so-remote rural areas this will be light years ahead of where they are today.
Most rural schools will be connected directly to fibre. The rural and urban broadband policies together will mean that 97 percent of schools across the country, reaching 99.7 percent of all students, will be using a fibre connection. The remaining, most remote schools will achieve speeds of at least 10 megabytes per second by other means.
Clare CurranWhy is the Government not investing more money in rural broadband than it is investing in urban broadband so that it ensures that rural consumers receive a comparable service, given his own comments that the different population densities and different economics of providing telecommunications in rural areas make it more expensive?
The differences between the urban and rural initiatives that the member points out reflect, as I said, the differing population densities of those communities, which is why we are taking a different approach to improving each one. We cannot directly compare the amounts for the urban and rural policies, because the urban amount is for an investment that the Government expects a return on—ultimately, it expects to get its money back, on behalf of taxpayers—versus the Rural Broadband Initiative, which is about providing grants to assist companies in improving broadband coverage.
The Rural Broadband Initiative is expected to cost around $300 million over 6 years. It is being funded, firstly, by a $48 million direct Government grant, plus $252 million from a new telecommunications development levy, which will replace the telecommunications service obligation levy. The telecommunications service obligations will remain, including local free-calling. There will be no extra costs to consumers.
Why should rural New Zealanders have to wait until next year at the earliest for even the first trench to be dug and the first millimetre of fibre to be laid for broadband, despite all the promises from him and the Prime Minister that the broadband roll-out would start last year?