Posts Tagged ‘broadband’

Govt to ban cheap broadband

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, December 4th, 2012 - 46 comments

There’s a fabulous win for consumers and a Government good news story out of the Commerce Commission yesterday – significant cuts in the cost of broadband for consumers. You. But John Key’s not happy and is threatening to legislate over the decision.

Think Mega

Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, November 4th, 2012 - 138 comments

Kim Dotcom is promising ultra-cheap broadband for NZ. If he pulls it off, he is going to put our local entrepreneurs to shame – not to mention our government.

Fry puts heat on broadband

Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, February 22nd, 2012 - 64 comments

Steven Fry’s outburst on broadband in NZ, however confused, did at least succeed in putting the state of our broadband access back in the headlines for a bit. It’s an issue that the Nats would rather we forgot.

Joyce’s broadband back-down

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, May 24th, 2011 - 7 comments

Steven Joyce has been forced into a embarrassing back-down on giving a regulatory holiday to companies who won contracts for the Government’s Ultra Fast Broadband plan. But MrSmith wonders if leaving it up to Commerce Commission is going to be any better given its poor record under National.

The broadband revolt

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, April 12th, 2011 - 16 comments

One of the Nats’ few constructive policies at the last election was Steven Joyce’s ultra-fast broadband project.  The Nats promised $1.5 Billion investment to deliver UFB to 75% of New Zealand homes within 10 years.  Almost 3 years in, their proposals have just been met with almost universal rejection from industry  and consumer groups.

Business awakens to National’s undemocratic ways

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 pm, February 20th, 2011 - 6 comments

On a day when I’ve heard of 3 smaller businesses shutting down due to National’s economy, Big Business too is waking up to the flaws in National’s ways. The push through, don’t consult, override the wishes of the people mentality even chafes the corporates when it’s not in their favour.

Privatising Infrastructure by Stealth

Written By: - Date published: 3:07 pm, January 20th, 2011 - 16 comments

Government IT projects are easy to take aim at, but this isn’t a hit at their lack of thinking or actions on UFB.

This is about them privatising their entire computing systems, preferably without being noticed; paying the least they can to a corporation to take care of your most personal data.

Broadband deal illegal?

Written By: - Date published: 7:08 pm, November 1st, 2010 - 10 comments

Are Joyce’s plans for a regulatory holiday on the proposed ultra-fast fibre broadband network a violation of international legal commitments?  InternetNZ says yes.  Joyce says no.  Labour’s Clare Curren accuses the Nats of “disregard for NZ law, legal trade obligations and public scrutiny”.

XT Outages

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, February 1st, 2010 - 58 comments

Last week thousands of Telecom XT network customers were without service, some for three days. This comes just weeks after a similar outage last December. It makes a mockery of Telecom’s claim of “five nines” (99.999% reliability). A recent post at by Peter Griffin at Sciblogs (a site for NZ science bloggers) tears Telecom a […]

Send Nats to Scandinavia

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 am, October 26th, 2009 - 13 comments

Want to send some Nats to Scandinavia? Me too! The one above should be self explanatory. Support Sign On and send John on his way. But while we’re at it let’s send Steven Joyce to Finland! He’s making such a mess of National’s broadband plans. He clearly needs to learn a thing or two about […]

Another one bites the dust

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 28th, 2009 - 52 comments

And so another of John Key’s “big ideas” is shown to have been costed by monkeys. Treasury study suggests fibre plan will fall short: A study commissioned by the Treasury has warned it would cost between $5.3 billion and $10.4b to connect three-quarters of New Zealand homes with fibre-optic cable using the Government’s preferred active […]

Still stuck in the slow lane

Written By: - Date published: 5:42 pm, April 6th, 2009 - 44 comments

In the Dom Post today Tom Pullar-Strecker calls Steven Joyce’s recently announced broadband fibre plans: old wine in new bottles – a backdown on the ambitions sketched out by National before the election, which were arguably always too grandiose. Managing the expectations they raised during the campaign was always going to be a problem for […]

Why Key really wants super-fast broadband

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, June 11th, 2008 - 29 comments

Remember National’s broadband ‘plan’ that reads like it was drawn up on the back of a napkin? Notice how the only gains they can point to from this plan to borrow $1.5 billion are better video conferencing (when was the last time the average worker used video conferencing?) and being able to download pirated movies […]

Interview the Leaders VII: National

Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 123 comments

The Maori Party has asked for an extension on the replies for Tariana Turia and we’re happy to oblige. In the meantime, here are the questions to United Future’s Peter Dunne that we chose from your suggestions. The general question remains: Of which of your achievements in politics are you most proud? For the two […]

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