The most successful infrastructure of modern times?

Bill Bennett writes:

One day shortly before Christmas, a Chorus contractor will connect a slender strand of glass fibre to a family home and power up the hardware needed to drive it.

When that line lights up and the data starts flowing, the 11-year Ultra Fast Fibre project will finally end.

From where we are in late 2022, the wisdom of building a nationwide fibre network looks obvious. That wasn’t the case when Sir John Key and Steven Joyce first planned the network in 2008 while preparing that year’s election manifesto. Critics saw it as a high-risk project.

The Ultra Fast Broadband (UFB) programme they developed has been a success by any standard. The initial goal was to connect 75 per cent of the nation — in cities and towns — to the network over a nine-year build. As the network grew, and people saw the benefits of fast, reliable broadband demand soared well ahead of initial projections. It was so popular successive governments revisited the plans twice and funded the UFB2 and UFB2+ extensions.

At an event to mark the end of the project, Chorus CEO JB Rousselot noted that 87 per cent of New Zealanders will now be able to access the fibre cable passing their gate

I was one of those early advocates, and recall significant scepticism. Some people claimed there was no need, for speeds that fast, and others that VDSL would be just as good,

It was a hugely ambitious project, and delivered huge results for New Zealand. 87% of homes can now have fibre connections, Telecom got split into Spark and Chorus, and it was all done within budget. Steven Joyce and Amy Adams oversaw an incredibly competent and vital project, which stands in huge contrast to today’s Government that promised light rail to be completed by 2020, and now are saying they may approve a business case by 2025.

The UFB project is a good reminder of what Government can achieve when it works with the private sector, and when it is competent.