Tardy lines shatter rural dreams

By CHRIS BARTON

There's a common early retirement daydream among information technology-savvy folk. Move out of the city rat-race to some idyllic spot miles from anywhere, by a beach, in the bush, or out in the rolling countryside.

There, where the air is cleaner, the sound quieter, the sun shinier and the grass greener, one can do what one has always wanted - read books, eat healthy food, grow vegetables, ride horses and spin yarn fresh from the backs of a small herd of llamas.

And of course, while you get your new lifestyle started, you'll carry on with a bit of remote consulting work from the comforts of home. With today's technology you can compute and telecommute from anywhere, anytime. Right?

Unfortunately, much of the time you'll be very wrong. Substandard telecommunications services in rural locations mean your connection to the internet will be painfully slow, frequently drop out and cost an arm and a leg, because you will be outside the free local calling area and paying toll call rates to get to your nearest internet service provider. Welcome to the digital divide.

The term was first used to describe the gap between rich and poor - "disadvantaged groups" - in their ability to participate in the information economy.

Increasingly the term now refers to the gap between urban and rural areas due to differences in the telecommunications infrastructure. Just how bad is it? Very.

A survey by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry presented last July found that while a surprisingly high 50 per cent of rural people had internet access, more than half had problems with their telephone line. These problems included frequent disconnection, interference from electric fences, exchange overload and painfully slow access speeds.

Telecom acknowledged the problem and said it would cost $230 million to upgrade the rural infrastructure to provide internet access speeds of 14.4 kbps (kilobits per second) and a whopping $550 million to get to 33 kbps (14.4 kbps is the equivalent of the early Jurassic era of internet access speeds, slow as a lumbering diplodocus).

Most dial-up access in the city is 56 kbps and this is giving way to fast access services starting at 128 kbps and moving up to broadband speeds of 2 Mbps (megabits per second).

But the Government has decided, following last year's telecommunications inquiry, that 14.4 kbps is as good as it's going to get in the rural heartland.

The decision gives a lie to the Coalition's strategy announced in November that "New Zealand will be world-class in terms of embracing e-commerce for competitive advantage," or its vision proclaimed in June that all New Zealanders will "have the opportunity to access and effectively use current and emerging information and communication technologies."

Telecom, delighted that the Government has backed off forcing competition on its monopoly pathways, has revised its figures and is to invest $100 million fixing the ageing copper wire and geriatric equipment in outlying exchanges. That's a small price to pay to meet its Kiwi Share obligation, which was designed to ensure that rural customers could not be disconnected for profit reasons.

But the upgrade, if it ever happens, will be little more than a jury rig. There will be no fast digital subscriber line access on rural wires. That's just for city dwellers whose exchanges have been upgraded to deliver fast internet and because the service works only within 3 km or so from the nearest exchange.

What's missing in New Zealand's telecommunications environment is a more equitable universal services obligation that ensures that rural users and the farming community are not disadvantaged.

So is there any hope on the rural horizon? While the Government fiddles with token ideas to bridge the gap, such as providing community-based internet access in libraries, marae and community houses, there is some possibility that new pathways through the sky may be found.

Internet service provider ihug has been providing one-way (asymmetric) satellite-based internet access which, via a roof-mounted dish, provides a fast satellite downlink for internet access but requires a phone line for the return path. The company is testing technology that will allow two-way satellite access using a larger dish.

Walker Wireless, using radio frequencies it acquired in the recent spectrum auction, is also preparing to offer two-way wireless broadband internet and phone services. This requires line-of-sight antennas.

Then there's the promise of 2G (second generation) and 3G mobile phone services, which can deliver fast internet to handheld computers. But the roadblock to all of these commercial services is the business case for servicing sparsely populated areas. That lands the digital divide problem back in the hands of the Government.

Some industry experts say the new wireless technologies dramatically change the business case for providing services to rural areas.

Using the existing infrastructure of the Government-owned BCL and Transpower, for example, it would be not only feasible but also cost effective to place radio frequency broadband data transmitters to cover about 90 per cent of the country.

And the cost? Some reckon it could be done for as little as $25 million.

Links:

www.transpower.co.nz

www.bclnz.co.nz

www.maf.govt.nz