WELLINGTON REGION BROADBAND PLAN
The Wellington Regional Strategy identifies broadband as a key enabler of economic growth and one of seven priorities. This is particularly around innovation and productivity benefits, but also high quality broadband infrastructure can transform the delivery of education and health services and facilitate new forms of community engagement and participation in public life.
Potentially significant environmental benefits are also receiving attention, such as reduced road congestion because of telecommuting and reduced air travel through the use of telepresence (very high definition) video conferencing.
Councils throughout the Wellington region have agreed to work towards developing a regional broadband network to provide open-access passive fibre connectivity to all urban and rural MUSH (municipal authorities, universities, schools and hospitals) entities throughout the region. This will include a number of “semi-rural” localities and provide a platform for additional services particularly services to businesses. This would be subject to cost-benefit analysis of specific remote locations and possible use of alternative technologies.
The councils have agreed to a joint process to develop a joint venture between councils and the private sector to deliver this network. Councils have negotiated a provisional partnership with significant existing telecommunications companies. The geographic area of coverage will be the entire Wellington region.
Urban Plan
The urban areas in the region are:
* the built-up area of the four cities
* the ten discrete urban areas of Pukerua Bay, Paekakariki, Paraparaumu, Waikanae, Otaki, Featherston, Greytown, Carterton, Martinborough, and Masterton
* a number of “semi-rural” localities on the boundaries of these urban areas
The network capability is expected to include linkages to other networks such as KAREN and GSN, backhaul between major centres in New Zealand and possibly overseas connections.
The priority MUSH entities for connection are all schools, tertiary institutions, medical centres, GP practices and pharmacies. Lower priority health and education providers, such as early childhood education providers and other heath providers such as physiotherapists, have not been included in the network design, although their locations are known and many would be on the network routes.
Rural Plan
The rural network will apply to the rural areas of all eight territorial authorities, recognising that the economics of rural broadband can be very challenging for remote rural areas.
The model proposed is to lay a fibre connection, where possible, to a point of connection in a number of specified rural communities. Generally this would be a rural school, but could also be another appropriate location with access to power. This would provide the basis for:
• fibre or wireless connections to transmission points that would provide further communication reach, such as microwave links to WiMAX or cellular transmission sites;
• community-driven projects that provided further fibre reach, such as mole ploughing fibre along remote roads and across farms; and
• other services that could use these points of connections, such as Wi-Fi nodes at a rural school.
Some of these fibre connections are likely to be relatively high cost. However the installation of this capacity, moving progressively outwards from the core network to more remote locations, is considered the most effective next step in providing higher levels of connectivity. Where appropriate for cost-benefit considerations, alternative technologies could be used to deliver these links.
Government Funding
An Expression of Interest (EOI) to the previous government’s Broadband Investment Fund (BIF) was made for regional funding for the project. The bid was successful but the BIF fund has subsequently been cancelled. Any decisions on broadband funding are currently on hold pending the new National government’s policy on broadband.
Broadband Uptake
The purpose of an Uptake Strategy is to increase the demand for broadband in the region across the economy using a balanced set of initiatives that are aligned to the central government Broadband policies and programmes. This work is being carried out by Grow Wellington to ensure that demand for broadband is intrinsically tied to economic growth activities ranging from internationalisation of business (exports) as well as fundamental improvements to efficiency and effectiveness.
Resource Management Processes
Resource Management Act processes are regularly cited as hindering telecommunications infrastructure investment, particularly the differences in rules between councils. While this is probably overstated, it is does need attention across a wider perspective that includes rules for greenfields and brownfields developments, and conditions for use of existing assets like unused pipes.
Accordingly a process to develop a common approach to RMA processes and council policies in this area is currently being developed
Benefits
The Wellington region sees the opportunity for an affordable open access duct and fibre network to the MUSH sites as creating a number of benefits for the region:
• Enhancing the quality and performance of education, health, e-governance and public service;
• Enhancing business success in the region especially in the film, media and IT services sectors that are key parts of the Wellington regional economy;
• Fostering innovative business developments in the weightless economy;
• Future proofing the region to prosper with reduced affordability of transport;
• Significantly lowering the barrier-to-entry for new telecommunication service providers;
• Providing a fibre infrastructure backbone for the region such that ultimately affordable broadband will no longer be a constraint on private and public sector performance.
The spread of such a network will result in significant opportunities to access key public users (MUSH sites), large high-value users, many smaller businesses and existing points of connection such as exchanges. These commercial opportunities are recognised by our likely private sector partners and give us confidence that a sustainable and successful business model can be developed.
We see a range of other strategic projects aligning with and contributing to this project, such as the Wellington Loop Project and community initiatives that utilise high-capacity communications.
By working closely with other public sector organisations, and those with a community interest, we expect to be able to deliver on a range of additional objectives such as shared base level infrastructure which means potentially less disruption to roads from trenching and less visual pollution from overhead wires.
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