Adam Gifford: Broadband has power to transform life in the boonies

When Project Probe was mooted as a way to get broadband internet into every school, community-builders up and down the country thought it should be more than a photo opportunity for Education Minister Trevor Mallard.

They pushed for the objectives of the scheme, which was to cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, to benefit everyone in those regions and isolated hamlets successive Governments have neglected.

It was probably too much to hope Probe would lead to a real market for high-speed broadband. But the threat of competition and a generous subsidy was enough to make Telecom wake up and roll out a limited form of broadband around the country, using its national network of copper wire.

The regional development boards and small town seers who pushed the Government into Probe may have got less than they desired, but they are not stopping there.

Having discovered the joys of working in a connected and collective fashion, they have regrouped under an e-regions banner to push ways people can use the capacity now available to them.

And having learned some valuable lessons along the way about how both Government and business works, they have a knack for putting the bite on both ways.

There is now a long and growing list of e-regions demonstrator projects that aim to make the internet a basic part of life out in the boonies.

Cabinet has coughed up money for Project Comet (Centralised online management and export trade), a collaboration among public agencies, companies, educators and regional groups to get small and medium enterprises using the internet to export their goods.

The subsidy will cover the first 2000 firms that sign up for a web store package offered by Dunedin e-commerce software developer e-Media. They also get three months free of a 12-month JetStream subscription, and a half-price deal on the certificate of applied e-commerce from Palmerston North-based United College of Learning, which has made a specialty of online education.

NZ Post has signed up as the main logistics provider for Comet, and e-regions is negotiating with other potential service providers.

The education element is a good touch. It shows an acknowledgment that internet business is just another sort of business, not a magic bullet, and if people don't learn how to do it properly, they can fail.

Other demonstrator projects aim to help schools teach fluency in technology and prepare students for the employment opportunities broadband may bring.

Access to health services has long been a sore spot in regional New Zealand. E-regions' first venture into this field is a remote diabetes support and management project, which aims to bring together district health boards, other Government agencies, private companies and community groups to find ways technology can improve the lot of people with chronic diabetes, particularly those who live in rural, low-income areas.

It will draw on the work of Professor Stuart Speedie from the University of Minnesota, who pioneered such initiatives in the US.

The payoff will be better use of scarce medical specialists and fewer unnecessary traumas or expensive hospitalisations.

E-regions is working with charitable trust Carers New Zealand to develop ways non-government organisations (NGOs) can use broadband to share resources, knowledge and information.

There are several thousand organisations working in the health and disability sector. Opportunities to cut down on duplication and ensure better use of resources abound. E-regions believes broadband can be used to deliver support and learning for carers who are socially or geographically isolated.

Local government, too, is awash with organisations competing for resources. Technology-driven collaboration could be the way to reduce duplication and waste.

Many of the e-regions regional stakeholders have a mandate to attract industries and workers to their regions. Urban members want to find solutions to their cities' transport problems. E-regions plans a work-life balance campaign showing ways people can increase productivity by using high-tech tools or broadband to work from home, rather than clogging up the roads.

New Zealand subscribed for almost two decades to market models that considered vast swathes of geography and society not worth bothering about.

Privatised and semi-privatised state companies profited from infrastructure built up by decades of public investment, but seemed unable to innovate. That task was left to the tens of thousands of people who liked where they lived, and found ways to create businesses around themselves.

Probe showed regional stakeholders that by aggregating and demonstrating demand, they could force monoliths like Telecom to invest in their areas.

If the ideas market e-regions is creating works as planned, any limitations in the broadband network the Government was prepared to pay for will be shown up quickly.

Then don't be surprised if all this internet-enabled collaboration turns into pressure on Telecom to speed up the roll-out of ADSL2, the next generation of its copper-based internet technology. Or even better, fibre to the home.