New Zealand Government outlines rural telecommunications plan

The New Zealand cabinet has signed off on proposals for the roll out of high speed broadband in rural areas and the reform of the Telecommunications Service Obligations (TSO). Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce says in a statement that the plans will lead to a major step-change in rural broadband.

Joyce confirms that 97 percent of rural households will have access to broadband services of at least 5Mbit/s; with the remainder reaching at least 1Mbit/s. A big part of the plan will be connecting fibre directly to rural schools, one of the most concentrated areas of broadband demand, Joyce says. "The government's rural broadband initiative will help deliver fibre connections to 97 percent of schools across the country and 99.7 percent of students. The remaining most remote schools will achieve speeds of at least 10Mbit/s. Joyce says that the only significant change to the rural broadband initiative was to up-weight the importance of the community connection objectives, relative to the schools part of the initiative.