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Five new cell sites go up as a part of the rural broadband initiative
By Sim Ahmed | Auckland | Tuesday, 21 February, 2012 | 12 Comments
Five cell towers were opened today as part of the Rural Broadband Initiative, with the government promising the service will ensure users can receive download speeds of up to 5 Mbps.
Speaking at the opening of the Eureka tower built by Vodafone, in Waikato, ICT Minister Amy Adams says she is representing the rural community's ICT issues; especially when it comes to helping rural New Zealanders catch up to their urban counterparts.
"While the cities have made pretty good progress with getting broadband speeds that were slowly improving and picking up, for the rural areas the divide was getting bigger and bigger.
"When you look at New Zealand economy, and you look at where the real centres of growth and productivity are, they are overwhelmingly represented in our rural areas. And yet those same areas are the ones that suffer from very low levels of connectivity."
The RBI is a government funded scheme to bring broadband internet to rural regions. The overall project is expected to bring broadband and cellphone coverage to roughly 300,000 homes around New Zealand. The cellsites opened today were two in Waikato, two in West Auckland, and one in the Tasman Bay.
Last year Vodafone and Chorus (at the time Telecom) won with a joint bid to build the cell sites. Each tower will be available for open access for other service providers to attach their own wireless equipment.
"Access to high-speed broadband makes a significant difference to the lives of rural New Zealanders," says Vodafone CEO, Russell Stanners in a statement.
"For the Waikato, New Zealand's premium dairying region, it will help drive improvements to productivity and business performance."
Stanners says it will not just be farmers who benefit from the RBI. He says the new cell sites will expand the machine-to-machine communication market in New Zealand.
One of the companies showcased at the Eureka site opening creates remote weather monitoring stations, including one which is being used on the Rena shipwreck.
Stanners says the initial download speeds available to customers will be around 5 Mbps, but he expects this to double or triple within the next four years.
Construction has started on five further sites to be completed in the next year. A total of 154 new cell sites will be built, and 387 towers will be upgraded with new equipment and software.
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Comments
Broadband Development.
While the cities have made pretty good progress with getting broadband speeds, but that were slowly improving and picking up, for the rural areas.
Posted by Jenita at 17:53:22 on February 24, 2012
Posted by Jenita at 17:53:22 on February 24, 2012
Yawn...
5Mbps is an excellent result and certainly qualifies for the moiniker "broadband". The vast majority of sites that you access around NZ or overseas will deliver "service" to your router at speeds considerably less than 5Mbps. As Stanners pointed out, there is promise around LTE provided someone can make the business case work for rural NZ. Of course it would be too much to expect farmers to contribute. Whilst they trumpet their contribution to NZ's GDP, I don't see too many acknowledging their debt to urban NZ'ers who provide the overwhelming tax base that for NZ and, by inference, the taxpayer funds for the RBI in the first place.
Here's a radical idea for rural NZ (and Rural Connect). Instead of bleating (ha), let's see what net benefit the RBI brings to rural productivity. Then perhaps that might assist the business case for the Telco's to roll out LTE.
Posted by Anonymous at 14:37:48 on February 22, 2012
Here's a radical idea for rural NZ (and Rural Connect). Instead of bleating (ha), let's see what net benefit the RBI brings to rural productivity. Then perhaps that might assist the business case for the Telco's to roll out LTE.
Posted by Anonymous at 14:37:48 on February 22, 2012
re: Yawn...
This is exactly the type of uninformed and selfish, city-centric thinking that is leading to the new urban/rural digital divide.
Uninformed because for most, the economic benefits of high speed broadband are now clear and undisputed, even if they are not readily quantifiable. It is the rural sector that stands to gain the most from new education, health and business-productivity services but they are the ones that are considered 'uneconomic' to serve.
Selfish because the UFB will bring web 3.0 to your city door at little or for most, no cost, yet rural people are destined to pay a premium for a lesser service. Perhaps, Anonymous, you do not see our country as being an egalitarian society where, as John Key has said, equal opportunity of access is a principle the government follows.
City-centric because the fact is that rural NZ contributes the most to GDP and city incomes. The prosperity, and therefore tax, that consumption-driven urban people take for granted is built on the backs of the productive rural sector.
Did you know that the urban UFB program will not work if a significant number of consumers do not sign up for new fibre-based services. The ComCom demand-side conference has illustrated that the UFB is actually at risk of failing. Of course the government will not allow that to happen so will probably have to put more billions in to the urban program.
While this happens in the background, urban people are standing back and waiting for all these new gee-wow services to arrive on their doorstep courtesy of the government and Chorus. Contrast that with rural people who are expected to be grateful for getting a new standard of service that urban people have taken for granted for a long time now. Yes, most will be grateful in the short term because they have had to put up with desultory dial-up and snail-pace DSL broadband for so long. In the medium term, rural people are standing up and helping themselves to get the things that too many urban people think it is their right to receive without effort.
Posted by Rural Connect at 9:05:54 on February 23, 2012
Uninformed because for most, the economic benefits of high speed broadband are now clear and undisputed, even if they are not readily quantifiable. It is the rural sector that stands to gain the most from new education, health and business-productivity services but they are the ones that are considered 'uneconomic' to serve.
Selfish because the UFB will bring web 3.0 to your city door at little or for most, no cost, yet rural people are destined to pay a premium for a lesser service. Perhaps, Anonymous, you do not see our country as being an egalitarian society where, as John Key has said, equal opportunity of access is a principle the government follows.
City-centric because the fact is that rural NZ contributes the most to GDP and city incomes. The prosperity, and therefore tax, that consumption-driven urban people take for granted is built on the backs of the productive rural sector.
Did you know that the urban UFB program will not work if a significant number of consumers do not sign up for new fibre-based services. The ComCom demand-side conference has illustrated that the UFB is actually at risk of failing. Of course the government will not allow that to happen so will probably have to put more billions in to the urban program.
While this happens in the background, urban people are standing back and waiting for all these new gee-wow services to arrive on their doorstep courtesy of the government and Chorus. Contrast that with rural people who are expected to be grateful for getting a new standard of service that urban people have taken for granted for a long time now. Yes, most will be grateful in the short term because they have had to put up with desultory dial-up and snail-pace DSL broadband for so long. In the medium term, rural people are standing up and helping themselves to get the things that too many urban people think it is their right to receive without effort.
Posted by Rural Connect at 9:05:54 on February 23, 2012
re: Yawn...
Once again, I am gob-smacked at the "expectation culture" growing so readily in the rural compost. There was I thinking that as rural NZ contributes significantly less than 5% of NZ's tax, and yet a great deal more in income (declared or not), that they would take the RBI gratefully and use it to continue their outstanding tradition of maximising wealth (if not income) and decreasing tax.
But clearly this is not RuralConnect's perception. While he clearly has enough time on his hands for long-winded whinges in on-line media, he wants to see rural (his?) "productivity" enhanced by someone (taxpayer funded obviously) laying hand-polished fibre carefully to his door. Despite that he has chosen to live amongst the compost.
Is it worth pointing out RuralConnect that your bleating about the failings of "demand-side" economics resulting in the need for "supply-side" solutions rather neglects the elemental fact that the UFB is a taxpayer loan to Chorus et. al, whilst the RBI is a taxpayer gift...
I am also encouraged that you see NZ being an egalitarian society - I must try that argument on Fed Farmers the next time the price of milk is in the spotlight, and us urban folks ask for the price to be subsidised. I believe that Fed Farmers wants us to operate according to the laws of supply and demand? Oh, the irony...
Posted by Anonymous at 16:47:33 on February 23, 2012
But clearly this is not RuralConnect's perception. While he clearly has enough time on his hands for long-winded whinges in on-line media, he wants to see rural (his?) "productivity" enhanced by someone (taxpayer funded obviously) laying hand-polished fibre carefully to his door. Despite that he has chosen to live amongst the compost.
Is it worth pointing out RuralConnect that your bleating about the failings of "demand-side" economics resulting in the need for "supply-side" solutions rather neglects the elemental fact that the UFB is a taxpayer loan to Chorus et. al, whilst the RBI is a taxpayer gift...
I am also encouraged that you see NZ being an egalitarian society - I must try that argument on Fed Farmers the next time the price of milk is in the spotlight, and us urban folks ask for the price to be subsidised. I believe that Fed Farmers wants us to operate according to the laws of supply and demand? Oh, the irony...
Posted by Anonymous at 16:47:33 on February 23, 2012
So where are they?
Wouldn't it have been good f the article actually told us where the sites were? One is "in the Waikato" - no problem, that's not a big area - and the other 4 are where? Useless and uninformative.
Posted by Anonymous at 13:15:53 on February 22, 2012
Posted by Anonymous at 13:15:53 on February 22, 2012
So where are they?
Kumeu and Waitakere, Motueka, Eureka (the one at the opening) and Puketaha.
The next five will be Marton, Mystery Creek, Ashurst, Tauhoa and Bayleys Beach.
Cheers.
Posted by @simantics at 13:21:46 on February 22, 2012
The next five will be Marton, Mystery Creek, Ashurst, Tauhoa and Bayleys Beach.
Cheers.
Posted by @simantics at 13:21:46 on February 22, 2012
Regurgitated spin
I agree with Rural Connect - this 'article' is regurgitated spin, not journalism.
Posted by Disappointed reader at 11:25:10 on February 22, 2012
Posted by Disappointed reader at 11:25:10 on February 22, 2012
arghhh!!!
There is so much that is wrong with this article, so much spin...
First, the government have promised speeds of at least 5Mbps, not up to that speed. Except that when the MED introduced the word 'peak' in to the undertaking for minimum peak speeds, the end result will, for many rural people at certain times of the day, be a maximum of 5Mbps.
Second, for Amy Adams to help rural New Zealanders "catch up to their urban counterparts" she needs to scrap the RBI and do something better. Which from her speech at the ComCom conference yesterday, seems unlikely. The UFB will deliver speeds of 100Mbps or more yet the RBI promises 5Mbps which is 1/20th of the urban speed - the digital divide is being forced even further apart.
Third, this speed difference matters because the coming 'high speed' apps require speeds of greater than 5Mbps, so rural people, by government design, will not have access to the new health and education services as well as having to settle for SD video whilst urban people get multi-streamed HD video.
Fourth, Mr Stanners suggests that the initial speed of his new rural broadband service is 5Mbps. It will actually be higher but to get the speed "doubling or tripling within the next 4 years" he will have to use the new 4G/LTE technologies. But he does not (yet) have access to the 700MHz spectrum that best enables those speeds in rural areas. Or does he know something that has not yet been announced by the MED?
Fifth, Mr Stanners, 5Mbps is not 'high speed broadband'! It is 1/10th of that defined by the Commerce Commission in their study of demand drivers. And, the ComCom definition is symmetric, Vodafone's service is not.
Sixth, my 3G rural broadband service yesterday delivered me ping times of 398mSec and upload speeds of less than 200Kbps. Unusable for on-line game playing (don't dismiss this because gaming has been identified as one of the drivers of the uptake of high speed broadband) and for cloud-based apps like Dropbox and Google Docs. This is an issue because last year, mobile broadband use doubled. If it doubles again next year, and the year after, then the new RBI service will stutter to a halt like my Youtube videos do today. The burgeoning growth in mobile broadband is destined to destroy the quality of service experienced by rural users who use the same network for their fixed broadband needs.
Posted by Rural Connect at 10:46:27 on February 22, 2012
First, the government have promised speeds of at least 5Mbps, not up to that speed. Except that when the MED introduced the word 'peak' in to the undertaking for minimum peak speeds, the end result will, for many rural people at certain times of the day, be a maximum of 5Mbps.
Second, for Amy Adams to help rural New Zealanders "catch up to their urban counterparts" she needs to scrap the RBI and do something better. Which from her speech at the ComCom conference yesterday, seems unlikely. The UFB will deliver speeds of 100Mbps or more yet the RBI promises 5Mbps which is 1/20th of the urban speed - the digital divide is being forced even further apart.
Third, this speed difference matters because the coming 'high speed' apps require speeds of greater than 5Mbps, so rural people, by government design, will not have access to the new health and education services as well as having to settle for SD video whilst urban people get multi-streamed HD video.
Fourth, Mr Stanners suggests that the initial speed of his new rural broadband service is 5Mbps. It will actually be higher but to get the speed "doubling or tripling within the next 4 years" he will have to use the new 4G/LTE technologies. But he does not (yet) have access to the 700MHz spectrum that best enables those speeds in rural areas. Or does he know something that has not yet been announced by the MED?
Fifth, Mr Stanners, 5Mbps is not 'high speed broadband'! It is 1/10th of that defined by the Commerce Commission in their study of demand drivers. And, the ComCom definition is symmetric, Vodafone's service is not.
Sixth, my 3G rural broadband service yesterday delivered me ping times of 398mSec and upload speeds of less than 200Kbps. Unusable for on-line game playing (don't dismiss this because gaming has been identified as one of the drivers of the uptake of high speed broadband) and for cloud-based apps like Dropbox and Google Docs. This is an issue because last year, mobile broadband use doubled. If it doubles again next year, and the year after, then the new RBI service will stutter to a halt like my Youtube videos do today. The burgeoning growth in mobile broadband is destined to destroy the quality of service experienced by rural users who use the same network for their fixed broadband needs.
Posted by Rural Connect at 10:46:27 on February 22, 2012
arghhh!!!
New hardware announced several days ago that allow LTE handsets to roam to 3G spells DOOM for rural. Now Telco's will be able to roll LTE in major centres while still providing a basic coverage in rural. No one is going to make that massive investment in this environment. MED has stuffed this up and taxpayers will pay again to try and get it right.
Posted by in the game at 9:06:21 on February 23, 2012
New hardware announced several days ago that allow LTE handsets to roam to 3G spells DOOM for rural. Now Telco's will be able to roll LTE in major centres while still providing a basic coverage in rural. No one is going to make that massive investment in this environment. MED has stuffed this up and taxpayers will pay again to try and get it right.
Posted by in the game at 9:06:21 on February 23, 2012
arghhh!!!
I do not quite understand your point?
The mobile telcos can roll out LTE right now using bands around 2GHz, so what you suggest is going to happen no matter what the development is around handsets.
Vodafone have stated that they have all the (3G) bandwidth they need to complete their contractual requirements under the RBI so they do not need 4G/LTE for rural users. All the telcos want the 700MHz digital dividend band because of the economic benefits of rolling out new mobile broadband services in that band. So if Vodafone get an allocation in the 700MHz band, I would reasonable expect that it would become available in rural areas. The issue I am arguing here and elsewhere, is that the burgeoning mobile broadband demand will, over a very few years, saturate wireless capacity and so reduce the quality of service to those who rely on the mobile networks for their fixed broadband service. I do not believe that technology will solve this problem.
To me, there is a simple solution to the rural broadband woes I see. That is to allocate the 700MHz band for fixed rural use. If that 700MHz digital dividend band goes to the mobile telecos, then what you suggest will be worsened.
Posted by Rural Connect at 10:02:50 on February 23, 2012
The mobile telcos can roll out LTE right now using bands around 2GHz, so what you suggest is going to happen no matter what the development is around handsets.
Vodafone have stated that they have all the (3G) bandwidth they need to complete their contractual requirements under the RBI so they do not need 4G/LTE for rural users. All the telcos want the 700MHz digital dividend band because of the economic benefits of rolling out new mobile broadband services in that band. So if Vodafone get an allocation in the 700MHz band, I would reasonable expect that it would become available in rural areas. The issue I am arguing here and elsewhere, is that the burgeoning mobile broadband demand will, over a very few years, saturate wireless capacity and so reduce the quality of service to those who rely on the mobile networks for their fixed broadband service. I do not believe that technology will solve this problem.
To me, there is a simple solution to the rural broadband woes I see. That is to allocate the 700MHz band for fixed rural use. If that 700MHz digital dividend band goes to the mobile telecos, then what you suggest will be worsened.
Posted by Rural Connect at 10:02:50 on February 23, 2012
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