The need for fibre

TUANZ Head Ernie Newman looks to the future in a Herald op-ed:

… But catching up is not enough.

As telecommunications increases its role as a dominant force in our lives, a small country like New Zealand has a vast amount to gain in productivity and lifestyle terms from taking the extra step to be an early adopter.

In the 21st century this means replacing copper wires with fibre optic cable.

… Fibre to the home – the replacement of the old pair of twisted copper wires with fibre optic cable all the way to the customer’s premises – is motoring ahead in many developed countries.

It offers almost unlimited bandwidth for “triple play” – video, voice and data across phone lines.

Unlike copper, service quality does not degenerate when it gets a few kilometres from the exchange or street cabinet – rural New Zealand, please sit up and take notice!

Read the whole article.  Ernie proposes a potential division of responsibilities for getting fibre to the home.  That telcos get fibre to the street cabinets, that local bodies and power companies get fibre from  cabinets to letter boxes and that customers pay for getting it from the letterbox to the house.

That’s now at all a bad suggestion.

Copper is 20th century technology and fibre is 21st.  There is no doubt that one day NZ, like all developed countries, will have a fibre running to basically all premises in the country.  But do we want to have this happen by 2040 or 2020?