City to lobby for web priority

Cameron Brewer. Photo / Richard Robinson

The Auckland Council plans to use its weight to get priority in the Government's broadband rollout.

Deputy chairman of the council's economic forum Cameron Brewer said the council would put pressure on to make sure Auckland can reap the benefits of high-speed internet as quickly as possible.

The Government plans to connect 75 per cent of New Zealand to the fibre network by 2019, and wire in all major businesses, schools and hospitals within the next six years.

Fibre offers speeds up to 10 times faster than copper lines, which many New Zealanders are hooked into.

"This is one of the first pressures that the Auckland Council will be putting on [the Government] in a unified matter.

"For every year we don't have ultra-fast broadband, we're missing out on $2.4 billion of economic gain, according to one study - so it's critical that we just get on and do it," Brewer said.

Auckland's proportion of the country's population and GDP justified giving the city priority, Brewer said.

"The Government, politically, has to connect with dairy farmers and rural areas around New Zealand, but economically [Auckland] is the powerhouse of New Zealand, we are home to about 90 per cent of the ICT [information, communications and technology] businesses," Brewer said.

As well as lobbying to get to the front of the fibre queue, Brewer said the council would work to help co-ordinate the deployment of the broadband network in Auckland.

"I think the council will look at rolling out the red carpet to the provider, to speed up the installation of it."

The broadband rollout impacts on the council's spatial plan and its hopes to develop Auckland's ICT sector.

"[We need to ask] where we want these kinds of businesses based? Do we want a cluster of them, do we want a bit of a Silicon Valley so we can point to it?" Brewer asked.