Regional Development
The Top of the South now has a high speed connectivity that is able to deliver unimagined broadband speeds to businesses and institutions; no other New Zealand region outside the main centres is as advanced in installing fibre optic cable. And that means a huge competitive edge over other regions.
The fibre network is enabling competition for internet, telephone and ICT services in the region. Telecommunications and ISP/IT companies are able to offer their services to end user business customers on a greatly superior platform than they have had access to in the past. No longer are they tied to the legacy Copper network of yesterday, the availability of Fibre has lead to innovation and opened a new world of options for our local businesses.
Our Fibre network has also enabled the region to benefit from the Governments Broadband Challenge Fund. By leveraging NTL's existing investment the Nelson Marlborough Inforegion (NMi) was able to secure just under $1.8m of funding from the BBC in 2007 to extend the reach of fibre and establish an Internet Exchange within our Region.
Network Tasman was contracted to extend its backbone fibre network into Picton and Waikawa, a market that would otherwise have been uneconomic. As well as ensuring connectivity, the funding also ensured price equity across the Marlborough region, for example the cost of leasing fibre from Waikawa to Blenheim is the same as across Blenheim CBD.
The contract also included extending the fibre in the Nelson Tasman Region to provide coverage to Wakefield Quay, the industrial area of Vanguard Street and the Motueka CBD; these areas were considered to be economically strategic and the fund allowed the acceleration of the network build and provided the assurance of price equality.
The remainder of the fund was set aside for the establishment of an Internet Exchange which it is hoped will bring an increasing range of services to broadband users in the region. The Exchange will provide a “meet me” point for Service providers and customers and allow collaboration and interconnection of the various Fibre, Copper and Wireless networks within the region.
While Fibre connectivity is presently a premium product best suited to medium and large businesses it is hoped that the Exchange and other emerging technologies should make connecting households and small business more feasible in the near future. NTL anticipates that “fibre to the home” as well as wireless last mile technologies will continue to grow over the next few years enabling fast broadband services to be provided to far more consumers.
