Rollout of 5G kept instead of proofing NZ networks
The company, which has since sold the site, sold 213 of the magnetic toys, which breached an unsafegoods notice which bans the supply of any magnets, sold in sets of two or more, that are a particular size and strength.
NZME recalled the sets and contacted customers to notify them of the recall after being contacted by the Commerce Commission.
The commission took the company to the Auckland District Court, where it pleaded guilty and was fined $87,750. — RNZ
WELLINGTON: Soon after Cyclone Gabrielle — when cellphone and internet networks were shattered — Spark approached the Government offering to use $24 million it planned to spend on a 5G rollout to invest in disasterproofing networks.
The Government said no. Inquiries show government officials had been warning ministers for years that getting network operators — the telecommunications companies like Spark, One NZ and Chorus — to invest in resilience was difficult, versus them investing in tech upgrades like 5G.
‘‘Investing in resilient infrastructure is expensive and not typically commercially viable for private network operators,’’ the Digital Economy Minister was told in 2021.
‘‘Resilient networks do not improve daytoday service quality, and so customers are not usually willing to pay for it.’’
But Spark’s offer on February 24 was rejected. The Government finalised the 5G deal just two weeks ago on May 12.
The cyclone in February showed how vulnerable the country’s critical national communications infrastructure was.
Cities and regions across the upper North Island were cut off, as hundreds of cell towers lost power and fibreoptic cables were severed by floods hitting bridges which carried them.
Thousands of people were cut off for days in Taira¯whiti and Hawke’s Bay.
More than 100 pages of OIA documents released to RNZ by Digital Economy and Communications Minister Ginny Andersen show the Government has been struggling for years to grasp the risks to communications from natural disasters, to get to grips with what telecommunication providers were doing to improve resilience, and to deploy its own limited powers to hasten change.
When Spark came calling, offering to change tack, it was an unprecedented response to unprecedented devastation.
RNZ asked Spark what went on. ‘‘At the time, as the key terms were not yet final, Spark signalled to MBIE that we would be willing to discuss changing the proposed commitment to accelerate Spark’s 5G rollout, to instead focus on developing increased network resilience,’’ it said.
‘‘We signalled that this could be an opportunity worth discussing either during the current spectrum allocation process or for future allocation processes.
‘‘In this instance, the Government decided they wished to continue with the focus on accelerated 5G rollout.’’
Spark was looking to spend another $40 million to $60 million within five years, linked to the contract.
Ms Andersen said the Government did not want to upset the three linked contracts — with Spark, 2degrees and One NZ — to improve provincial and rural connectivity.
‘‘To reopen negotiations with all three telcos to consider Spark’s proposal would have held up the acceleration of 5G rollout and other important rural connectivity initiatives,’’ she said said in a statement this week.
‘‘I am extremely proud of the deal we struck.’’
The deal will expand 5G mobile in the countryside and make it better, but will it be more resilient?
That depended not just on telecommunications networks, but on more resilient power lines, since the cell towers were taken out by power cuts, and there were not enough generators in backup.
Briefings over several years to the minister carry warnings that as telco networks have expanded, increased centralisation has in some key ways made them more vulnerable, not less, with more channels going through fewer key nodes.
Gisborne had just two fibreoptic cables into it. Both were cut in Cyclone Gabrielle.
The Canterbury floods of 2019 and 2021 took out fibreoptic cable on bridges and the West Coast lightning strikes severed internet to tens of thousands for two days.
In late 2021, Ms Andersen’s predecessor, Dr David Clark, wrote to all the big network operators, imploring them to tell him what they saw as the ‘‘top three’’ risks and which risks their plans did not account for.
Last year, Dr Clark ‘‘expressed concern about the lack of detailed information’’ he received.
Officials then advised the best way forward was for the Government to push through broader critical infrastructure reforms.
A note in the OIA papers shows when Spark went to MBIE in late February, it was ‘‘obviously positioning things with the Government playing a key funding role’’.
Spark said suggesting the option of taxpayers paying up to half the costs of making phone and internet systems more disaster proof was ‘‘worth exploring’’.
That will add up to billions. Even the immediate restoration of networks after Gabrielle, from Northland to Tinui, was costing a huge amount to public and private entities.
What Australia was doing, with half the tab falling to the government, was worth exploring here, Spark said.
It already spent $100 million a year on resilience, and Cyclone Gabrielle ‘‘showed that a broad range of further resilience work is required’’.
The company and wider industry were working on that.
Cyclone Recovery Minister Grant Robertson declined to have input into this report and Ms Andersen would not be interviewed. — RNZ
❛ To reopen negotiations with all three telcos to consider Spark’s proposal would have held up the acceleration of 5G rollout and other important rural connectivity initiatives