About Rural Broadband Progress

Rural internet and broadband connectivity is a priority for our economic recovery from Covid-19. And more importantly, the education opportunities, health and well-being of our communities.

Here’s the good news…nationally

• NZ ranks 17 of 207 countries for our broadband speed, with a mean download speed of 33Mbps
• Vodafone: “Our (cellular) network covers over 98.5% of the population…” Oh and “5G is live”.

And the not so good news…rurally. Why is my internet so slow?

• A survey by Dairy NZ found that 50% of farmers said they don’t have the broadband internet they need on their farm.  And 51% said they don’t have the mobile reception
• “…government assistance would be needed to bring rural networks up to the standard currently enjoyed by urban broadband customers”
• “The authorities think it’s fixed, but the reality is there’re heaps of people around with sub-standard or zero internet connection.”
• Over the last 2+ years Chorus have performed a copper network lifecycle replacement using equipment configured for urban environments, leaving an estimated 10s of 1000s of rural NZ’ers that rely on this technology with very slow internet or the internet drops out
• The government RBI2 (Rural Broadband Initiative 2) programme has been limited in its achievements by the main build partner, Rural Connectivity Group (RCG)