Waikato regional economic profile - Waikato Regional Council

RBI has been implemented by the Governmentto address the specific broadband infrastructureneeds of rural New Zealand. RBI focuses on the16 per cent of the population living in areas thatexperience no or very poor broadband services.About half of these households currently onlyhave access to dial-up speeds.Chorus and Vodafone began the roll out of therural broadband infrastructure in mid 2011. Itwill bring high speed broadband to 252,000customers and 86 per cent of rural houses andbusinesses will have access to broadband peakspeeds of at least 5 megabits per second(Mbps) 271 . About 20 per cent of rural homes andbusinesses have access to 5Mbps at present.Figure 73: UFB in Cambridge 272Chorus is also extending its existing fibre network by approximately 3,100 kilometres,with some homes on route being provided with the opportunity of fibre to the premise aturban prices and there will be an additional 6,200 square kilometres of mobilecoverage.Most rural schools are going to have access to ultra-fast broadband speeds of100Mbps with 1035 rural schools connecting directly to fibre networks, and 57 schoolshaving point to point wireless connections capable of speeds of 10Mbps or more. 273The roll-out of RBI is expected to take five years, as illustrated by Table 8.Table 8: Rural Broadband Initiative roll-out schedule 274Year Education Health1 71,300 pupilsin 520 schools2 48,000 pupilsin 331 schools3 23,900 pupilsin 170 schools4 3,150 pupils in70 schools5 22 pupils in 1schoolTotal146,350 pupilsin 1092schools5 hospitals5 healthcentres27 hospitalsPublicLibrariesNumber ofnew cellsites toreceiveRBI fibreFibre to the node 275986 cabinets5Mbps coverage21 +17,400 lines27%63 45 +30,200 lines5 health37%centres11 hospitals 120 52 +25,000 lines43 hospitals10 healthcentres183libraries342 +12,500 lines154 cellsites57%104,700 lines57%270Crown Fibre Holdings Ltd (2010, p. 2).271A megabit per second is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1 million bits per second. Bit rate or data transfer rate isthe average number of bits per unit time passing between equipment in a data transmission system. A bit (acontraction of binary digit) is the basic capacity of information in computing and telecommunications.272Crown Fibre Holdings Ltd (2010, p. 2).273Ministry of Economic Development (2012b) FAQs.274Ministry of Economic Development (2012d) Roll-out schedule.275Fibre to the node extends the reach of exchanges. Thousands of mini-exchanges or cabinets are installed in townsand suburbs, which are then linked to the local exchange with fibre optic cable.Page 72 Doc #: 2069885