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New Zealand's affordable broadband
A short report from Jon Brewer at Telco2 provides some much-needed perspective on New Zealand broadband prices.
The ITU-UNESCO Broadband Commission for Digital Development worries that broadband is unaffordable when the cost of a service is more than five percent of household income. Brewer measures how New Zealand stacks up against this benchmark. Our story is largely positive.
Brewer compares
the price of broadband services available in New Zealand
with the average household incomes of people able to buy
those services. He found fibre, ADSL and the Rural Broadband
Initiative wireless services all qualify as affordable.
Satellite broadband generally does not.
By the ITU’s measure, 98% of New Zealanders enjoy access to affordable broadband. Households covered by the Rural Broadband Initiative have affordable broadband, but must spend twice as much of their household income on it as households on ADSL or Fibre.
As for the two percent of population that don't have affordable broadband access, the question is what can New Zealand do to fix the problem. Are we happy to leave these people off the map or should government subsidise an alternative to expensive satellite broadband?
Bill Bennett
Freelance journalist.
Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.
His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast.
Bennett's The Download Weekly newsletter is published every Friday. You can sign up for it here.
If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.
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