I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Computerworld sends around a weekly summary/opinion email that often raises a smirk.
Today in an article entitled NZ still Broadband Basketcase …
The OECD broadband survey figures for the first half of this year are out. Once again they show that New Zealand is doing pretty badly in the telecommunications stakes. We’re placed 22 out of 30 OECD countries in terms of broadband uptake with 6.9 subscribers per 100 people. The OECD average is 11.8 subscribers and to hit the top half of the table, New Zealand would need about twice as many broadband users as it has today – around 570,000.
As we’ve noted before, the low broadband uptake figures are evidence that the Telecommunications Act and entire regulatory regime around it are dismal failures. Stopping short of admitting this, the once again minister of communications David Cunliffe got a review of the Telco Act 2001 underway last term and published the proposed changes to it in August. They’re too little, too late though. The rest of the world isn’t standing still waiting for us to catch up unfortunately.
Then on to this great quote …
Meanwhile, I wonder if Telecom isn’t reading the Telecommunications Act like the devil reads the bible. On top of low datacaps and high pricing, what makes DSL less attractive in New Zealand than overseas is the ridiculously low upstream speed of 128kbit/s.
Too funny.
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