Rural broadband technologies and the Rural Broadband Initiative in New Zealand

The Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) is a government initiative focused on closing the 'digital divide' between broadband services in urban and rural New Zealand. This NZ $300 million initiative uses a combination of fixed and wireless technologies to expand broadband coverage to 97.8 percent of New Zealand households and enterprises (and 97.7 percent of schools), providing competition at all levels of the network, and across fixed and wireless technologies. The RBI is expected to lift productivity in the rural sector, contributing to the Government's wider strategy to increase New Zealand's global competitiveness.