Kordia keeps up the fight over loss of rural broadband bid

The Government plan aims to give 80 per cent of rural households and businesses speeds of five megabits a second or better. Photo / Christine Cornege

State-owned transmission company Kordia still refuses to concede defeat in its bid for rural broadband contracts, a week after the Government rejected the proposal.

Kordia was part of the OpenGate consortium vying to build the Government's $285 million rural broadband network over the next six years.

The Government rejected the OpenGate bid last Monday, entering instead into negotiations with incumbents Vodafone and Telecom.

Kordia chief executive Geoff Hunt lashed out after the decision, saying the Government had opted for old technology which would fail to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban New Zealand.

The OpenGate bid proposed building a fixed wireless network using long-term evolution (LTE) technology.

However, this lost out to the Vodafone/Telecom offer of a slower network which would also offer third-generation (3G) mobile internet for the rural sector.

Communications Minister Steven Joyce said last Monday that fixed wireless LTE was not proven technology and the Government preferred going with a safer bet.

LTE is fourth-generation (4G) internet, but commentators dispute whether it offers speed up to a 4G standard. Despite this, LTE could potentially offer rural communities speeds four times faster than 3G.

The Government plan aims to connect 93 per cent of country schools to fibre, with speeds of at least 100 megabits a second and give 80 per cent rural households and businesses speeds of five megabits a second or better.

Hunt saw no issue with a state-owned enterprise speaking out against the Government.

"We are a commercial entity required to give a commercial result and we have to compete with all the other guys out there," he said.

Yesterday, Hunt was again on the offensive and pointed to Telstra's plan to roll out LTE in major Australian cities this year.

"[The announcement from] Telstra, a highly credible organisation, adds some weight to fact that LTE is not bleeding-edge technology or unproven. Rural New Zealand deserves to have real broadband," he said.

But Joyce discarded Hunt's complaints and said OpenGate and Telstra's offerings were different.

"They are not the same thing. Telstra is focused on mobile broadband using cell phones whereas OpenGate proposed using fixed wireless. There is a family of LTE technologies and frequencies and the two proposals use different ones," he said.

"What Kordia proposed is not in widespread use globally and is being offered by one company in two cities in Australia."