Rural New Zealand to get faster broadband

Rural businesses, schools and residents throughout New Zealand will soon have access to faster high-speed internet networks when a new broadband project gets underway next month.

Vodafone and Telecom have formed a partnership to deliver the government-funded Rural Broadband Initiative and, to coincide with Fieldays, the two companies have revealed their strategy.

The initiative has two main objectives: to lay fibreoptic cables to provide ultrafast broadband for rural schools, which will be covered by Telecom, and the community objective which will see Vodafone provide faster broadband speeds to most rural households.

Vodafone senior product manager Leon Mead said these latest developments would be a significant change to rural internet.

“To deliver our objective Vodafone is going to deploy 154 new cellsites and they will cover 80 percent of rural premises plus we will also do some upgrades to our existing coverage in the rural areas as well,” Mr Mead said.

The new cellsites mean mobile phone coverage will be improved in many rural areas and give rural users download speeds on par with urban centres.

“The government solution is to deliver a peak speed of five megabits per second. To put that in context in the latest Commerce Commission report on broadband in New Zealand as a whole, the average speed was three megabits per second so we’re aiming for an improve to a peak speed of five,” Mr Mead said.

Vodafone have also introduced their latest innovation, a directional antenna, which they believe will further improve rural internet coverage as well as cater for users in remote areas.

“To address the geographical issues in New Zealand we have a directional antenna, called a Yagi, which can be installed at a person’s house where it will pick up much better reception and be used to improve the service even if you are in an area where the coverage is perhaps not so good.”

Once the initiative is up and running Vodafone and Telecom will offer wholesale services to rural service providers who will provide users with new high-speed broadband packages.