Ti Point Tork

NZ Broadband

There hasn’t been a lot of action from the new Government on broadband (or anything, really, yet) but this Economist article is food for thought about spending priorities:

When it comes to promoting economic activity, it is easy to see why having broadband is better than not having it, but most benefits are likely to come from wiring people up in the first place rather than making existing connections hum faster. In Japan and South Korea over 40% of households have fibre links capable of blazing speeds, but that does not seem to have resulted in more rapid economic growth, or the emergence of new applications unavailable to consumers with ordinary broadband.

This argues for something like the Broadband Investment Fund, which is frozen but not dead (political cryogenics), aimed at getting broadband to places that don’t already have it. I still think NZ needs faster broadband to the home (I am personally far less efficient than I would be if I were in the US with blazing-fast broadband) and that the market has not and will not deliver it, but I wonder whether the mood in Wellington for broadband investment has dissipated now the election is over. It was always going to be bloody hard to do, and as the economy melts down there are many more candidates for investment raising their hands. I have no idea how it will play out, but I’m watching it keenly.