Building the Great Wall of Fiber

On March 31 New Zealand announced a $1.5 billion national broadband strategy to connect 75% of the country to fiber-based broadband over the next decade. A week later, Australia announced its own plan -- bringing fiber to 90% of the country over eight years. To only focus on the scale differences between the two proposals, however, misses a crucial point: collectively the New Zealand and Australian governments are totally changing the current policy paradigm. This is a momentous step: by choosing to directly intervene, they are changing the nature of the game, the players and the goalposts.