Recently, a $47 million boost to cover rural broadband across the motu was announced by Communications Minister David Clark. The money will be sourced from Covid relief funds.
While Kiwis living in cities and towns have been experiencing strong Internet speeds thanks to Ultra-Fast Broadband, allowing them to easily work from home, this hasn’t necessarily been the case for rural areas.
"The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us reliable internet is critical to being able to work, learn and socialise from our homes. Having been through lockdowns, it's clear some rural networks had real trouble adapting to the extra usage," says Clark.
“The $47m ‘Rural Capacity Upgrade’ will see existing cell towers upgraded and new towers built in rural areas experiencing poor performance, as well as fibre, additional VDSL coverage and other wireless technology deployed in congested areas," says Clark.
The Rural Capacity Upgrade will provide a major boost to patchy coverage of broadband faced across various rural areas in Aotearoa.
Clark describes that, "By the end of 2024 around 47,000 rural households and businesses should experience faster internet speeds and better reception than they do right now.”
"For those businesses, farms, marae, and households that aren't captured by current rural broadband initiatives, such as the Ultra-Fast Broadband programme, the initiative launched today will be of great benefit," says Clark.
Clark named online learning and remote health as areas which would benefit from these upgrades.
With the shift to working from home and online education more common nowadays, this upgrade will provide much needed coverage to thousands of people so that they can live their lives to the fullest!
Leading providers including Spark, Vodafone and a number of brilliant ‘wisps’ or provincial wireless internet service providers will have the money distributed across each of them.
Check out the table below to see the providers announced.
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Pre-pandemic, there was notable disappointment within advocacy groups around the public-private rural broadband rollout. The rollout has been far less comprehensive than the Ultra-Fast Broadband programme for cities and towns.
Technology Users Association of NZ head Craig Young says that the rural rollout has not covered enough areas and offered low speeds compared to Ultra-Fast Broadband. If broadband was food, Chris calls the rural broadband coverage a “stale donut.”
Recently, some Kiwis have turned to a new option. Those living on the fringe of cities or towns who can’t access Ultra-Fast Broadband but aren’t rural enough for the Rural Broadband Initiative have taken up Elon Musk’s Starlink, a satellite based broadband service created by SpaceX which apparently offers low latency and high speed Internet. However, Kiwis who have adopted Starlink have given mixed reviews on the performance so far.
The upgrade recently announced by Clark will hopefully address these issues that advocacy groups and Kiwis describe facing. A great broadband plan is vital for everything we do in our lives and those living the rural lifestyle shouldn’t have to miss out!
No matter where you live on the motu, getting a great broadband plan has never been more important.
Do you live in a rural area? No problem! Whether it’s fibre, copper, wireless or satellite you’re after, the team at Broadband Compare will help you find the best broadband plan that suits you! We're a free service to help Kiwis compare what's out there!
Check out our Rural Broadband Plans or simply give our friendly customer service team a free call on 0508 226 672.
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