NZ comms minister slams broadband policy

New Zealand's Communications Minister David Cunliffe has renewed his attack on National's broadband policy and raised expectations for Labour's plans to speed the roll out of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH).

"The Government will soon outline an ambitious action plan that builds on recent regulatory changes and investment commitments secured from Telecom, and that puts New Zealand on a pathway to the widespread deployment of FTTH in the future," he said.

Last month National outlined a policy to put $1.5 billion into ultra-fast broadband access to homes and businesses through fibre cables over the next six years if it wins the next election.

On Thursday, Mr Cunliffe told the TUANZ Telecommunications Day summit in Wellington that if National's proposed capital tender was pursued, it was inevitable that Telecom would be the only provider in this country able to undertake widespread FTTH.

A National government would be forced to offer more than just a Crown capital contribution in order for the project to go ahead, Mr Cunliffe said.

Any incumbent would insist on negotiating high wholesale access prices or other sweeteners from the government to compensate it for what would otherwise be sub-par returns at the retail level.

Widespread FTTH in brownfield residential locations was uneconomic for several well documented reasons, he said.

Groundwork must be laid now to provide incentives for investment in FTTH. The Government would be taking steps to address areas where it had concerns.

Among particular areas where more investment was needed was extending fibre-to-the-node further than was now planned by Telecom, as a key step toward a long term vision of FTTH.

Further investment was also needed in improving the availability of very high speed services to businesses and major users in major cities and provincial centres, Mr Cunliffe said.

Along with that, rural broadband infrastructure and international connections needed to be improved.