KEY POINTS:
Ten years ago, film editor Richard Clark could send a television commercial across the United States in half an hour using the internet.
Now, back in New Zealand after 20 years, it took him all day to send an edited commercial to a US client.
Clark said his US commercial editing company was the first anywhere in the world to use the internet to send work to clients, instead of by courier.
"It became very much a part of my business. I regarded myself as an internet-based company."
Sending electronic files back and forth meant he could quickly make changes for clients before delivering the final product.
"It was very fast, economic, a very flexible way of working and clients loved it."
Arriving back in New Zealand last year to settle in Masterton, he thought he would use broadband to continue to work for North American clients.
A job received from an American client two weeks ago was quick to download, but a 1.4MB sample took four hours to send back.
The clients liked what they saw and asked Clark to finish the job.
"It would be crazy to send a DVD with a Quicktime [video] file on it all the way to America by air, because it would take two weeks and we had two days to deliver."
But the finished 30-second television commercial took 22 hours to send to back to the States.
A.J. Hunter, who worked on the commercial with Clark, wonders how New Zealand will compete with other countries when it has such slow broadband speeds.
"Can we actually make a go out of selling our services in the future to companies in the United States?"
Hunter said those companies were more likely to chose someone in Pennsylvania whom they could communicate with using faster broadband speeds than a cheaper New Zealand option.
"It does mean that companies, if given the opportunity, will selectively prefer not to do business with people in the IT industry in New Zealand because they can't guarantee reliable communications with them."
Clark said a Government with an "enormous cash pot" could pay for the network.
In a country of four million, the Government needed to step in to develop a network infrastructure which could then be leased back to private companies to provide the services.
