Extending Telecom’s network is not the only way to deliver broadband to every door, says InternetNZ. The lobby group says electricity companies would be a faster option for building the new government's proposed fibre optic network, and save $2 billion.

A senior Vector executive has told NBR his company – already digging up Auckland streets to put power cables underground – is interested in providing fibre to the home, and even branching out into video and other content services delivered over fibre.

InternetNZ says it fully supports National’s plan to put around $2 billion of taxpayer funds toward building a national broadband network that delivers superfast internet over fibre optic cable to 80% of homes (in Australia, a similar national broadband network project has currently descended into a circus-style brawl, despite most bidders abandoning fibre-to-the-home in favour of the much cheaper fibre-to-the-node, in the same vein as Telecom’s existing roadside cabinet project; meet a Whisper Cabinet here).

But the broadband upgrad needs to be fast-tracked, InternetNZ says, and the fastest, cheapest way to deliver faster internet is for power utilities to handle the roll-out.

$2 billion saving
A VSDL extension of Telecom's existing roadside cabinet project was one of six scenarios considered by independent consultancy Network Strategies, which worked on the “Broadband Strategy Options for New Zealand” report InternetNZ is presenting to the incoming government.

The independent consultancy was investigating scenarios to introduce real high-speed broadband with at least 100Mbit/s for domestic users and 1Gbit/s for commercial users for 75% of the population within 10 years. ADSL2+, the technology being installed in the current Telecom Chorus cabinet project, would not hit those kinds of speeds. The faster VDSL would be required - the catch being that VDSL cabinets would have to be within 100m of every home.

Using the power utilities existing infrastructure, the total cost of the network build would be just over $3 billion, compared to an estimated $5 billion for a greenfields project to dig up streets and roll out fibre from scratch to 75% if the county.

Dr Suella Hansen, Director of Network Strategies says the consulting team had applied a techno-economic modeling approach to investigate in detail different technology, business and market scenarios.

“Public sector participation will be important as our modeling shows that the levels of required investment are beyond that of a commercial operator’s typical payback expectations,” says Ms Hansen.

InternetNZ Executive Director Keith Davidson says the model of utility expansion hasn't been visible in the ongoing public debate in respect to broadband infrastructure and now must be seriously considered. "The potential cost benefits of using utilities for broadband expansion cannot be ignored."