[able]

I see the current opposition are saying they'll get fast broadband into New Zealand.

The National Party says it would invest up to $1.5 billion to get fast broadband into nearly every home in the country if it wins the election.

The money would be used to drive the roll-out of a "fibre to the home" ultra-fast broadband network in New Zealand.

Party leader John Key told a Wellington Chamber of Commerce lunch this afternoon that a National Government would aim in the medium to long term to get broadband into nearly every home supported by satellite and mobile solutions.

"Our initial goal is to ensure the accelerated roll out of fibre right to the home of 75 per cent of New Zealanders. In the first six years, priority will be given to business premises, schools, health facilities, and the first tranche of homes," Mr Key said.

"We also want to significantly enhance broadband access and speeds for household and premises where fibre to the home is not immediately feasible."

National would also take steps to accelerate high speed broadband roll-out to rural and remote areas, with the first step being to double the Broadband Challenge Fund to $48m and refocus it on rural and remote areas......

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10505539

[Anita & Marco]

Yeah right...!!!!

[kanatakiwi]

More Telecom monopoly! Competition is what will improve service in this country.

[Kim39]

More Telecom monopoly! Competition is what will improve service in this country.

and not just the broadband service!!!!!


Kim

[marcia]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friends of ours who are on dial up because in the valley they live broadband isn't available they came up on Saturday and we had the computer on searching for something - they were amazed at the 'speed' of our braodband - I almost choked on my Bourbon:D What speed - this is very slow for broadband:no

Only time will tell..............

[boatieman]

Yeah!!
"National would also take steps to accelerate high speed broadband roll-out to rural and remote areas, with the first step being to double the Broadband Challenge Fund to $48m and refocus it on rural and remote areas......"

How about focusing on where the majority of people live ?? Urban areas!
But the statement is ideal for the statement yet to be made...."uptake in rural areas has been slow therefore we are abandoning the project"

[Nathan]

National's proposal is so wrong in so many ways..... and never mind the pandering.... NZ does not benefit from perpetuating the Telecom monopoly.
Concentrate on populated areas. Encourage hiring IT people with skills regardless of their "NZ experience." Teach children to be creative with technology instead of how to drink more and drive faster!

[veronica]

how about they just pay the junior doctors more

[PeteS]

We are building in a valley just outside Blenheim. There is a telecon line up the valley, but telecom couldn't tell me how much it would cost to connect apart from "$69 per hour plus cable and you have to dig the trench, we have to lay it in the trench becuase you might do it wrong". And after all that there would be a connection fee, and we couldn't get broadband because there want to update the cabinet at the foot of the valley but they are not sure when.........

We are going to become a telecon free zone. We are fitting a satellite dish, and telecon can **** ***.

[Carol]

The technology is already there to do this........with the right investment.
It's been around for quite a while now!
:(

[akp713]

Hah! I live on the North Shore and have supposed "Broadband" thru Telecom. I recently checked the speed and it's running at 265 kb/second. That's not anywhere near broadband speed. Back in the US I was getting 5.7 Mb/second and that speed has been doubled recently according to my parents back there. Something needs to be done about the state of broadband in NZ.

[IanW99]

Hah! I live on the North Shore and have supposed "Broadband" thru Telecom. I recently checked the speed and it's running at 265 kb/second. That's not anywhere near broadband speed. Back in the US I was getting 5.7 Mb/second and that speed has been doubled recently according to my parents back there. Something needs to be done about the state of broadband in NZ.

When I talked to Telecom recently they told me that if you run Speedtest (http://www.consumerspeedtest.org.nz/speedtest.php) at different times through the day and for a couple of weeks and keep a record of the speed.

If you continue to get a speed of less than 1MB then they will investigate it. They did say that as you share the line with others, that the speed may fluctuate at different times due to others using some of the capacity.

Ian

[CJ22]

I'm going to miss my 20Mb/sec cable :(

The main cause of slow connections, at least when it comes to ADL, is simple distance from the local exchange (the maximum supposedly being about 6miles, beyond which you might as well not bother). I've had lightening fast ADL in small out-of-the-way villages simply because I live right next door to the exchange. It may simply be that Telecom need to install more exchanges.

Ground water can be a big problem too. Apparently something like 25% of BT exchanges flood at some point in the year!

You shouldn't be 'sharing' you line with others if you're running ADL - it's just a regular copper phone line. People share hubs when they're on cable, but ADL performance shouldn't be effected by people nearby. It may simply be that Telecom don't have the overall capacity. They wouldn't be the only company to sell bandwidth they don't have - they're all a bunch of lying gits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contention_ratio

[holland]

I'm sick off the really poor slow connection it makes a snail look like a race horse

[barryp]

Telecom does offer quality (high-bandwidth, low-latency, and reliable) broadband. You just can't get it to your house, especially if you touch the Old Skool POTS network anywhere. That's legacy technology in the truest sense; they're bringing engineers back out of retirement to keep the old gear working, and those old guys are dying off with no replacements.

I'm not sure how important fat pipe to the home is for the future well being of the country. Despite decades of yammering about the 'knowledge economy' in NZ, the country retains its economic base in agriculture and tourism. But there's no way to progress when the most visible means of data exchange is SMS texting, probably the least efficient and most costly-per-byte messaging scheme not requiring the use of pigeons. :mad:

[CJ22]

It's important to my well being! :)

In the UK, OFCOM put a lot of pressure on BT to upgrade the backbone. I don't think there's any old-style exchanges left, as BT accepted a complete replacement directive. Sounds like there's nobody pushing Telecom in quite the same manner.

[boatieman]

Broadband or what it should be called adsl, is a bit of a joke in NZ. Telecomm say that its 2-3Mbps Megabytes per second, when if you look closely its measured in Kbps Kilobytes per second:roll , so its not really Megabytes at all. Then of course the speed is further reduced by the ratio of users per adsl link, which is usually 36:laugh .
I'm in Honk Kong at the moment and I am using a 1GB fibre optic line and this is rather fast. 1000x
Ratio of 10 users per line. I downloaded some documents 130meg, 4 times, as I thought that nothing had happened, so i just kept on hitting the keys, until I realised how fast it was...instantaneous :exit .

Well Hard!!:nice1

[suebeenz]

It's a rather confusing with Mbps. Most people would assume that means 'Mega Bytes Per second', but actually that means 'Mega bits per second'. I think they purposely don't clear the confusion, to make their service sound really fast. :-)

So in other words, if they say the speed should be 3 Mbps:

=3 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
=3000 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
=0.375 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
=375 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]

http://www.mediaroad.com/products/speedcheck/free_tools/

And ADSL2+ which Orcon has begun rolling out (so far just in Auckland), is advertised as 'up to' 24 Mbps, which is:

=24 Mbps [Megabit-per-second]
=24000 Kbps [Kilobit-per-second]
=3 MB/sec [Megabyte-per-second]
=3000 KB/sec [Kilobyte-per-second]

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Note in the first SIX YEARS they will concentrate on businesses, schools etc.

Don't go holding your breath now.....

You'll be able to train a monkey to cycle into town, log on at the internet cafe, draw a picture of the page you want to see, cycle back and wait whilst you decide what you want to click on next in that time.

This solution is quicker and more fun than dial-up, and costs just a few banana's a day.

[incredible hulse]

It's important to my well being! :)

Wouldn't come to NZ then ;) Get about 250k/sec here; reason given we're 4.9km's from exchange. Asked them to put a new exchange in to serve the 50 houses in our valley that face the same issue and was advised to go on dialup ! Not sure if they support 9600 baud yet mind

Hardly surprising though -even in business IT I'm doing bleeding edge work out here that I was doing 4 years ago in the UK !

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

Another plus for Hamilton then.

I am currently getting 3.1mb/sec, which seems about average for my connection here (I have seen it as high as 4.9 on occasion). Hardly light speed I grant you, but far from pathetic. At $49.99/month I can't complain too much.

Of course we're close to the city, so would expect a decent service.

If anyone is interested you can test your connection speed here

http://www.nzdsl.co.nz/module-Speedtest.phtml

Hope it doesn't bring you too much misery.

[Leccy-Lee]

Can say Telstra on 10Mbs is pretty fast, but then you need to live in a cabled area and pay the high fees for it. We downloaded 1Gb in 12min once! :) But its not always that speedy!

Didnt the UK government once promise in an election campaign that "every home would have a computer on the internet" that was some years ago and i believe it still hasnt happened (no by there doing anyhow)

[incredible hulse]

If anyone is interested you can test your connection speed here

http://www.nzdsl.co.nz/module-Speedtest.phtml

Hope it doesn't bring you too much misery. 161k down, 86k up -45 dollars a month (with 5gb download cap) !!! :wah

[boatieman]

Hey Hulse,

The min dialup speed in uk was 28.8kbps here its 20kbps.
I think they have one of those classic 9600 bauds in the mount surf shop!!!:laugh
I think that was on my mainframe (IBM 4341) network thingy in 1979 !!!!!!!!!!
Its finally caught on here in NZ!!!