Cunliffe rules out publicly-funded national fibre network

John Key and David Cunliffe's views on New Zealand's broadband future differ greatly,

With John Key's pledge to spend $1.5 billion of public money on an open-access fibre-to-the-home broadband network on the table, it was always going to be interesting to see how Labour would respond once it had considered the political repercussions of the unexpected announcement.

On first look late last month, IT and communications minister David Cunliffe rubbished the deal, labelling it a "wolf in sheep's clothing" that would just reinforce Telecom's monopoly.

In his 48 minute speech to the TUANZ Telecommunications Day conference here in Wellington today, Cunliffe reinforced that view but revealed that Labour will announce an "ambitious plan" that will lay the groundwork for the national fibre network everyone agrees we all need.

What will that plan involve? Who knows, Cunliffe wasn't giving anything away. Perhaps we'll gain an insight in the budget on May 22, when any large-scale Government funding would be outlined. It is likely the Government is putting money aside for some sort of infrastructure build. It certainly won't be a rival to John Key's fibre plan:

"I profoundly disagree on a recently proposed mechanism for achieving that goal [of FTTH]" said Cunliffe.

"No one is willing to undertake widespread FTTH to the home investment in competition with Telecom's services," he said.

"Why would make Telecom invest billions of dollars to over build their existing infrastructure?"

National's plan, said Cunliffe has "all the street smarts of the 1990s all over again".

He gave the thumbs down to the New Zealand Institute's Fibre Co plan as well. Effectively, Cunliffe is saying it is unviable to build a fibre optic network on a national level even with the Government subsiding the cost of it. Therefore, a big-bang approach is fated to fail.

So again we're left with the question - how are we going to get the FTTH Cunliffe agrees we need? The minister spent the second half of his speech explaining how the policies and regulation that have been put in place, plus this as-yet unannounced package would put New Zealand on track for a fibre future.

But you could tell he'd lost a previously attentive audience that had heard it all before and was looking for a more visionary plan. National deputy-leader Bill English is scheduled to speak this afternoon. If he wants to upstage the minister, he won't have to try hard.