Minister defends internet plan

Steven Joyce. Photo / Alan Gibson

The Government has dismissed claims its planned broadband scheme is not world class.

Responding to a report quoted in yesterday's Herald, Minister of Communications Steven Joyce said it was only one measure of broadband quality and is "unlikely to be shared by many New Zealanders".

The report was released by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research arm of the Economist.

"They've taken an approach and come up with a score with the way they believe [broadband should be delivered]. It may not have anything to do with other people's rankings and nothing to do with the speed of the service," Joyce said.

The report ranked the broadband plan behind 10 other countries.

Joyce said the only countries whose schemes outstrip the Government's for speed were Japan, Singapore and South Korea and New Zealand's projected 100 megabits per second matches the rest.

The advantage of a fibre network was that speeds could be increased as demand for faster internet went up, Joyce said.

"When you take into account our population and our density, we're really doing something no one else has thought to do," he said.