June 15, 2016 9:00am by David Farrar

RBI build done

Communications Minister Amy Adams marked the completion of Chorus’s role under the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI), saying the build would transform rural communities.

Ms Adams was in Waitomo in the Waikato region to switch on the final cabinet and celebrate the successful $234 million cabinet build programme, alongside the Government’s fixed line RBI build partner, Chorus.

This included the upgrading of 1237 rural cabinet and exchanges, connecting priority users (including 1027 rural schools and 39 hospitals and health centres) and backhaul to 154 RBI towers.

“The investment in the cabinet RBI programme means around 110,000 rural households and businesses across New Zealand now have access to improved copper broadband thanks to the RBI programme,” Ms Adams says. …

Before the cabinet upgrades, residents and businesses had speeds between 0.25 and 5 megabits per second (Mbps). Residents and businesses will now be able to experience speeds of between 10 and 20 Mbps – with those living within about 1km of a cabinet able to access speeds in excess of 50 Mbps.

I had a look at some of the VDSL cabinets the other day, and the speeds they are managing is very impressive. Not as good as fibre of course, but a huge improvement on ADSL.

The backhaul involved 3,500 kms of fibre to 1,200 cabinets and 1,000 schools. Chorus also did fibre to 150 Vodafoner cell sites for mobile broadband.