NZ's secret shame
Am i the only one that is so humiliated by the fact that we live in New Zealand? Why is it that we can climb Mt Everest, pioneer the womens right to vote and split the atom...but not provide broadband that is even half the standard of other countries?? It's embarassing.
Listening in tutorial last week, I was blown away by the amount of people around me who had to point their computers in the direction of the sky tower to get even the slightest amount of coverage?? That just doesnt make any sense to me. And why is it that if I use more then a certain amount of broadband (even though Im willing to pay for more..) I get a warning saying I've exceeded the limit and suddenly my broadband is dial-up speed?? That's not fair!
Now I hate computers, and I'm pretty sure that the feeling is mutual but surely we live in a country that is developed enough to meet the internet needs of it's PAYING customers. Even just in auckland?? (Im not really fussed if the South or really even the far North has it...just me here in the AK)
Recently, a billionaire oil tycoon from Canada (they actually exist! funny..) came to stay with my family. He was a nice enough guy... very modest and not judging of the fact that oil is not sprouting out of my garden. But he LAUGHED and LAUGHED when we had to inform him, that no... we can't access our emails from our laptops when we're driving around the city.
It was humiliating. It felt like New Zealand didn't have adequate plumbing or something.
Why can't we fix this?? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea of NZ's internet situation, why its happening etc.. So please inform me. If Canada can do it, why can't we??
Maddy Simpson
Listening in tutorial last week, I was blown away by the amount of people around me who had to point their computers in the direction of the sky tower to get even the slightest amount of coverage?? That just doesnt make any sense to me. And why is it that if I use more then a certain amount of broadband (even though Im willing to pay for more..) I get a warning saying I've exceeded the limit and suddenly my broadband is dial-up speed?? That's not fair!
Now I hate computers, and I'm pretty sure that the feeling is mutual but surely we live in a country that is developed enough to meet the internet needs of it's PAYING customers. Even just in auckland?? (Im not really fussed if the South or really even the far North has it...just me here in the AK)
Recently, a billionaire oil tycoon from Canada (they actually exist! funny..) came to stay with my family. He was a nice enough guy... very modest and not judging of the fact that oil is not sprouting out of my garden. But he LAUGHED and LAUGHED when we had to inform him, that no... we can't access our emails from our laptops when we're driving around the city.
It was humiliating. It felt like New Zealand didn't have adequate plumbing or something.
Why can't we fix this?? I'll be the first to admit that I have no idea of NZ's internet situation, why its happening etc.. So please inform me. If Canada can do it, why can't we??
Maddy Simpson
posted by MaddySimpson at 12:47 PM
2 Comments:
This one's a bit hard, unfortunately, because it involves a whole series of events that are stupidly complicated and stupidly ... well, stupid!
I'll give you the short version: Telecom use to be a state-owned enterprise, which later became privatized. Now, the NZ government had contracted Telecom with building the communications infrastructure with the whole of New Zealand, which basically meant that Telecom controls an absolute monopoly over all telephone/broadband lines that are currently existing. The recent big "struggle" between Telecom and the government is due to the fact the government's now pissed about Telecom holding such a monopoly and consumers having to pay such a hefty fee for their services. The "unbundling" of lines means that more (and newer!) tele-communications companies are allowed access to those lines, which produces competition between rival companies. Simple economics = more competition, lower prices. Or better services.
That's all well and good, but that's just the background - you're not getting better internet 'cause Telecom are greedy money-whores.
The big problem comes - the one thing that non-industry people do not know, and haven't been told about is when the government made the deal with Telecom, they had included a clause in which that the infrastructure had to be all upgraded at the same time - which means that the *whole* of NZ had to have stable broadband before any parts can be allowed access. Notice lots of road construction around the North Shore? That's part of the plan to bury the power lines along with the new Optical Fibre system in preparation for ADSL 2+, which from the way it looks, not going to be operational for a long time yet.
Basically, what that means is that unless the "middle-of-nowhere" can get high-speed connections, none of us will. A further problem arises when Telecom unbundled the lines, they also attached a minor "problem" with it: they refused to be held accountable for upgrade/maintenance for these lines, as they weren't allowed exclusive use they denied having to support its use. But, all of the qualified field technicians currently in NZ are predominantly owned by Telecom, and privatized contractors are too small in numbers to work on the lines and/or they have just been refused due to Telecom's monopoly.
Still, all that's in the future. Why can't you get a good connection now? Because we're using a copper wire system. You, as a user, is connected to a specific "switch", which everyone else on your street connects to. That connects to the local exchange, which is than connected to the central exchange in the city, and so on and so forth. The problem usually lies in where you live - if you live on a street that is more then 2.3~5km away from your local exchange, you're screwed. The signal, which is continually lost over any distance, has almost completely disintegrated by the time it reaches the 2km mark. The best part is the fact that each local exchange is approximately 5km in range, with each overlapping at 4km.
Sucks, aye? Hope that helped!
Personally I have no problem with the state of our broadband in New Zealand. I don't know why, maybe its because I've just switched from dial up or am not that impatient. 100MBs to me seems like a good speed and it is sufficient for what I want to use it for.
I'm sick of hearing from people saying that the telecommunications companies are holding back. Has nobody taken into consideration the geography of our nation? We are surrounded by hills and mountains and therefore it is not always going be possible or economically viable to create more of an infrustructure.
As far as I'm concerned, having the internet is enough. There are billions of starving children in the world and here we are complaining that our internet speed is only 100MBs, sorry but we should be grateful that we have such a huge amount of information available to us when billions don't.
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