Zone 3 schools missing out on fibre broadband

Jonathan Brewer has done a great job in putting together data from multiple public sources to list the schools and students in Zone 3 that will miss out getting fibre connections (ultra fast broadband) in the initial roll out. He has published a map showing schools and additional analysis that will get connections under UFB and RBI as well as those that will miss out.

Given the limitations of the underlying data, it is possible that some of the analysis has minor errors. Nevertheless, the general message is clear. It seems that a substantial number of schools and students will be stuck sharing an inadequate fast broadband connection for years while those in more remote and urban areas get the benefit of ultra fast broadband.

What's also interesting is that additional analysis showed that 90% of the schools missing out are within 2 km of existing Chorus fibre. Translation: it isn't very costly, say $20-30 million, for the government to connect them and connect them early.

This concerned us. It also concerned TUANZ and Federated Farmers. So we wrote a joint letter to Ministers (Minister of Education and Minister for Communications and Information Technology). Responsibility for answering the letter has been passed on to ICT Minister Steven Joyce. We are looking forward to a detailed reply.

In the meantime, Labour Party MP and ICT spokesperson Clare Curran tabled our letter in the House on 18 May. As it is now a public document, we are making it publicly available.

Letter (pdf): Zone 3 Schools Missing Out on Fibre Broadband

Table (xls): Broadband Status of Schools

The letter being tabled in the House and the Minister's bland reply (end of clip)

Transcript of the video is posted on the Red Alert blog.