Good internet arrives just in time
It cost more than a billion dollars but the country’s level 4 lockdown would be a ‘‘dog’s breakfast’’ without it, says one of the men behind New Zealand’s ultra-fast broadband network.
‘‘They would have no end of buffering problems or overloading problems with so many people trying to get on it,’’ Bruce Davidson said.
‘‘It would have been a dog’s breakfast.’’
He should know. The past 10 years of Davidson’s working life have been spent getting ultra-fast access to a majority of Kiwi homes.
The New Plymouth man is the compliance and design manager for Chorus, which has more than 580,000 addresses connected to its network.
The $1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband project was tendered by the Government in 2009 and contracted out in 2010 and 2011 to four providers – Chorus, Northpower, Enable Services, and WEL Networks.
The first phase of the fibre rollout was completed at the end of 2019 and now 79 per cent of New Zealanders have access to a high quality internet connection. When the project is completed it will have taken roughly 12 years.
The value of the project is now being realised, Davidson said.
The lockdown has seen hundreds of thousands of employees logging in to videoconferences from home, school children and university students have turned to online education, and the use of online entertainment and communication platforms both before and after work skyrocketed.
Across the country average data-usage-per-household-per-day on the Chorus network went up by 60 per cent last Friday, though part of that was due to the popular video game releasing an upgrade.
Were the lockdown to have happened in 2010, before the ultra-fast broadband rollout, Davidson said it would have been difficult for so many people to work from home. hours has