Cunliffe at Telco Day 2008

Am spending all day at TUANZ’s Telecommunications Day 2008. Heard from all the Telco CEOs in the morning and now the Minister is speaking.

He said the aspiration is to have Fibre to the Home within a decade, which means by 2018. That means both major parties are saying they want fibre to the home with National targeting 2014 and Labour 2018. I personally am not too worried about the time-frames (2014 is very ambitious) so long as there is a co-ordinated plan with open access policies.

There was no funding announcement today, as many expected. But he did say a package will be announced in the near future. There will be great interest in that package – both the funding but also the policy. He was very critical of National’s proposal, so again the details of the Government’s proposals will be interesting.