Ultra-fast broadband in New Zealand: Early adoption experience

The New Zealand Government Ultrafast Broadband Initiative has been in progress now for a little over two years. Are its intended goals being achieved? As at December 2012, the rollout is essentially on schedule, even though there have been some challenges. In particular, the Government specified that most priority customers within the candidate areas should be addressed by the end of 2015 and this appears to be on track. Take-up of services by these customers is also progressing well. The paper provides a brief review of three of the ways the UFB is being used to enhance the outcomes for business, education and healthcare. Residential coverage is also progressing, but the take-up is low at this point of time as suitable services are only just emerging from the Retail Service Provider community. Overall it is assessed that the 10 year programme of work is delivering on expectations at this point in time, but there is still a long way to go and there are likely to be many challenges and perhaps a few surprises ahead.