Wellington Broadband
February 28th, 2007 at 11:27 am by David FarrarI’m delighted (and quoted as that) with the proposal for Wellington City Council to wire up “every household” for high-speed broadband internet services.
The idea to use the trolley bus lines, reducing the costs by 80%, is excellent, as is also offering private companies the right to use underground piping for no charge.
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February 28th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
My goodness, you’d think it was local body election year!
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
A worthy goal. Of course local government should get involved to make sure its citizens have broadband. And perhaps they can take care that they get their vitamin pills as well? Enough water? Their kids don’t get too fat? Lot’s of really good issues to spend ratepayers money on.
A Manukau City resident whose local council tried the same stunt years ago by wiring up parts of the city with fibre, so when ADSL arrived, these people couldn’t get ADSL and had to remain at dial up speed for years.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Broadband Schmoadbrand
I want my ice skating rink
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
good God, i just moved to wellington.
I’m now thinking to switch to teltstra cable as offering cheaper price.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I hope that’s not what they’re actually proposing.
Doing something like extending the current CityLink would be a good thing, allowing everyone in the city to connect at high speed and very cheaply to everyone else in the city. And one of the people you talk to might well be your ISP of choice.
But making it an “internet” connection in itself would be a mistake.
And i do hope they quickly go to the places that neither the trolley busses nor TelstraClear’s cable network go to, such as Tawa.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
David,
Why is it that you are vocally in favour of private provision of services – *except* in the case of telecommunications?
This is just another crony-capitalist vote-buying exercise, that will actually stifle investment in infrastructure (why bother paying to lay cable when the ratepayer will be forced to pay instead?)
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
This is wrong. What right does a council have to spend $15+million on broadband. Surly something like this should be up to private enterprise, if it is such a great idea why has it not been picked up by private company. I bet anything you like the figues do not stack up. If I paid rates in Wellington I would be spewing my ring out. I guess all other core services offered by the council are first rate, thought not. Councils should stick to core services, people can live without boardband I bet they can’t live without fresh water and a well run rubbish collection. The people in Wellington are been sold a pup.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
High speed connections are becoming to be seen as essential infrastructure and we need to get them laid through out the country. View them in the same way as you do telephones, electricity, sewerage, water and roads – and remember that all these were developed by government bodies long before private enterprise got in on the act.
Private Enterprise won’t provide fibre to the home for the majority of the country as the length of time for a return on the investment is too long. It is expensive to lay and expensive to administer. Projects like this require local/central government to drive them, preferably in conjunction with private businesses.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
This does not to have come out of Rates.
But, if a small amount does come out of Rates it is more than compensated by the businesses that attract staff and therefore contribute more rates. We are hiring plenty of people from outside Wellington.
It is also likely that it is paid for by users, not Rates. Over fibre we get much better connectivity for potentially the same price or cheaper than we pay now.
This is great vision from WCC. Lots of details to come but a great start.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
I would have thought that rod drury would be pushing wireless? Anyway, I think this is a good thing. However if labour are not returned after the next election i believe Wellington is going to see a big economic downturn. With the many thousands of make work labour jobs being reduced, the strain on existing infrastructure (if there is indeed any strain)will be eased.
Vote:The education ministry has doubled in size in seven years. Allthough we do now have NCEA!
February 28th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I totally agree with SSB. Why does the universe have to revolve around government in NZ? Are we really that much of a can’t do society?
Now where did I put that resource consent to wipe my own arse.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Side Show Bob,
The problem is that private operators can not easily gain right of way access in the way that the Post Office did (and Telecom does). The success of the existing CityLink was in large part due to a previous city council allowing them to string fiber along the council-owned trolley bus wires and supports in the inner city.
Note that part of this current proposal is allowing private concerns access to existing conduits, instead of having to get permission and spend the money to dig streets up themselves. That doesn’t cost much money, but makes a huge difference.
I hope that they are also prepared to grant access to non-profit community based groups.
Vote:February 28th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Thrash Cardiom said…
Private Enterprise won’t provide fibre to the home for the majority of the country as the length of time for a return on the investment is too long. It is expensive to lay and expensive to administer. Projects like this require local/central government to drive them, preferably in conjunction with private businesses.
That is exactly why I have urged DPF to lobby the government to buy back the lines from Telecom, so that they can go ahead and install a fibre network nationwide, and then NZ’s current & future broadband problems would be solved.
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 8:20 am
Is this just another example of the initial setting up costs are born by the primary producer[ratepayers], for low cost profits for other industry groups later.
Vote:eg deer, egg, wine at present and fonterra are at full speed.
March 1st, 2007 at 8:27 am
Thrash Cardiom, you’re completely incorrect that private enterprise won’t provide infrastructure. It’s when it became successful, that the government started to monopolise it.
You must have your facts reversed. Schools did exist before governments intervened to destroy them. Telephone lines existed before governments intervened to stiffle any improvement.
This move will stiffle any infrastructure investment in Wellington. And living in Auckland I can only applaud Wellington for doing so. Competition is good. Businesses, come to Auckland. We like to have more jobs and more choice here.
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 8:36 am
Berend, you appear to contradict yourself.
I suppose there could be an upside though – if WCC made a profit out of renting lines to private operators to provide fast broadband then they could take it off the rates………….(thats a pause)….NOT!
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 9:04 am
Berened, I didn’t mention schools. I don’t deny that facilities like water, phones, sewerage etc. existed before government got in on the act. However they only became available to the general public instead of the special few when government developed the widespread networks.
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 11:28 am
Also, I can’t see how it will stifle infrastructure development in Wellington as this project IS infrastructural development, probably the most wideranging and complete development of its type in New Zealand. High speed network access to the entire city. No artifically restrained speeds via ADSL or cable.
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Rod Drury said…
This is great vision from WCC…
Rod’s proposal which was detailed in the NZ Herald this morning sounds like a good idea. This is exactly as what I have put forward in this blog before. DPF and his lobbyists, InternetNZ could urge the government to buy back the lines from Telecom then they can take care of any infrastructure investments itself. All problems would then be solved. I hope that DPF is more enthusiastic about this idea of Government ownership. It is time to stop whinging about Telecom.
Vote:March 1st, 2007 at 7:36 pm
The lines issues is dead and done with. Telecom has operational sep. Deal with it.
In terms of future fibre to the home I am not too worried about who provides it, so long as there are clear rules around open access to it. I suspect we will not have one nation wide solution but different providers in different areas. Inspire Net for example have laid a fair bit of fibre in Palmie.
It’s ridiculous to imagine each household should have say six fibre cables going to it, any more than you have six driveways, six phone lines, six water connections or six sewerage connections.
Where you get the competition is people providing services over that fibre. Ideally the fibre should be laid (like with Citylink) by a company which only wants to rent it out to others, not provide services itself.
A future fibre network will be just as much core infrastructure as SH1. It needs to be open to all motorists and car brands, not just the cars manufactured by the road builder.
Vote:June 12th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
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Vote:June 12th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
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