John Key announced a while ago that, if elected, a National-led government would sink a whole heap of money into upgrading New Zealand's broadband. The plan is to bring our broadband up to where America is. Nice.
Sounds good at first glance, but it is very definitely just election promises designed to make National look good. When you look deeper it's not a lot more than empty promises. In fact, if they do it, it's actually likely to make the situation worse.
For starters, it's going to take 5 years to complete an upgrade that will bring us to the point that America is currently at. By that point in time America will have moved on. American broadband users currently complain that their internet is too slow. They are around 3 years behind Asia in their broadband technology, so you can bet American telco's will be working on their own upgrade plans. If there's one thing you can guarantee about America is that they don't like to be behind anyone else in anything. So, by the time we catch up to where they are right now they'll be way ahead.
I hear what you're saying. At least if we complete the upgrade we won't get even further behind. True. But is the government providing the money really the answer? Telecom is notoriously stingy, slimy and a just an all round horrible company. (Well, in my opinion it is anyway) If the government offer them the money to upgrade New Zealand's broadband you can bet Telecom will never again put up any money to upgrade it any further. Why would they when, instead, they can operate in the knowledge that the government's given them the money once so they'll probably do it again when the situation again gets dire enough.
Add to that the fact that Telecom will, undoubtedly, put up their prices in 5 years when our broadband is faster. Usually that's acceptable, you're getting a better product, a product the company has had to spend a heck of a lot of money on so it's only fair the consumer should pay more than they paid for the inferior product. But Telecom won't have had to put up the money, they'll just reap the benefits of a price-hike with no increased costs. And does anyone really believe Telecom would not raise their prices? If you do then I challenge you to research further into the history of Telecom. They will absolutely do it.
As it stands there is definitely a bit of a problem going on with broadband in this country. It's slow as a dog (by world standards) but there's no competition in the market so Telecom themselves have no need to do anything about it. Customers can either take the shitty broadband or have nothing. It's not a hard choice.
What the government really need to do is force Telecom to do the upgrades. Now, don't ask me how they can do this. People don't want our government interfering with non-State-owned companies (with good reason), so creating a ton of legislation isn't neccessarily the right answer. Other than buying back Telecom (which I don't really see as an option, particularly not one that National would take) I'm not certain what the solution is. I do know, however, that John Key's plan isn't the right answer either.
My flatmate, Derek, pointed out what I think is the most important bit of information with the whole plan by National. It's a piece of information that they very conveniently left out and that most people would never realise themselves. (As is typical at election time. And, well, anytime politicians are involved.)
The upgrade is only going to update bandwidth in New Zealand. The Southern Cross Cable is not part of the upgrade (apparently the whole thing isn't being used anyway, but Telecom have no desire to turn on the rest despite how easy it would be, since doing so would increase their costs). If nothing changes at the Southern Cross cable point then the only speed increase you are going to see is when you are dealing with solely New Zealand traffic. So, if you are video conferencing between New Zealand cities it'll seem great. But if you mostly surf overseas websites, you won't see any change.
Kind of an important piece of information to leave out there, Mr Key! Bloody electioneering.
