There’s still no hint of his big plan. But Communications and IT minister Steven Joyce had a few back-handed barbs for the telcos’ Castalia report today, which rejected public funding, or any need for fibre-to-the-home [UPDATE: Telecom rephrased its own postion later in the day].

“Private sector companies have decided, on behalf of shareholders, not to invest in a nationwide network of fibre to the home,” Mr Joyce told the Commerce Commission-backed “Broadband at the crossroads” conference in Auckland.

Left to their own devices, the telcos could take “up to 30 years” to replace their copper with fibre, Mr Joyce said. “As a country, we can’t wait that long. The reality is our competitor countries are already well ahead of us in the race for near-universal access to ultra fast broadband.”

Who wants the money?
If the telcos don’t want the $1.5 billion, who does that leave, beyond lines companies?, asked NBR.

“The telcos haven’t seen what we’re proposing,” replied the minister. “Neither have the lines companies.”

In a few weeks, Mr Joyce’s more detailed proposal will be out there, and everyone’s perspective could change.

Fibre as stimulus
The minister also framed fibre-to-the-premises as part of the government’s recession-fighting infrastructure spend-up, noting that US President Barack Obama has allocated $US8 billion for rural broadband in his stimulus package, adding “The speed with which we grow out of the recession will define how wealthy we are in 10 years time.”

Ground broken this year
After his speech, Mr Joyce told NBR he was still on track to announce a draft plan in “a few weeks”, on how the $1.5 billion might be spent, with industry then asked to comment.

The minister is committed to a more accelerated schedule than across the Tasman where, 18 months after the Rudd government’s election, its $A4.7 billion national broadband network plan is still a dog’s breakfast with a preferred bidder yet to be named.

“We'll have stuff going in the ground by the end of this year”, the minister said.

Fibre the only way
While all technological options were on the table, the minister said during his speech that New Zealand needs “network access ability of at least 100Mbit/s, without contention and in both directions ... only fibre will be able to provide this cability."

Copper Morrie vs Ferrari fibre
While the Castalia report’s author is unable to conceive of any application that requires fibre-to-the-home, Mr Joyce was not short on examples of the need for fibre, or its benefits.

“Most of us are still reliant on copper to link us up with the main fibre network. While copper was cutting edge 10 years ago, it’s a Morris Minor compared with the Ferrari fibre we need to compete.

Not a luxury
The minister continued “Ultrafast broadband – which means fibre – should not be a luxury. It’s not about online gaming or allowing the kids to download movies quicker (although they will be able to do those things”

Rather, Mr Joyce said fibre would help spur innovation in cutting edge areas like software-as-a-service and cloud computing. He added that in his former life as a commercial director of a tourism business, he would have appreciated fibre’s ability to deliver real business computing at home.

He reiterated fibre’s ability to cover-come New Zealand’s tyranny of distance, and the NZ Institute’s calculation that fibre-to-the-premise would be worth between $2.4 billion and $4.4 billion a year in productivity gains.

Open access
If the view articulated by the Castalia report is correct, the big three telcos don’t want it. The report’s author says existing networks, and incremental upgrades, will handle any application, and that the public would be unwilling to pay up to $75 a month, his calculation (disputed by others) of what would need to be charged.

It’s also probably that leading contender Telecom doesn’t want to tap the debt markets for the $3.5 billion or so it would need for its share of a total fibre-to-the-home project. As Tuanz noted, it’s natural for a telco to want to squeeze more life, and return, out of today’s copper before contemplating the huge cost of a cable upgrade.

Dark fibre
While the minister said nothing new, it was instructive what he chose to highlight.

“It’s our intention to invest at the infrastructure level. That is, the provision of dark fibre,” he said.

The minister sees many operators competing to offer services over the network – a model that would accommodate the NZ Institute’s vistion of “NetCo” a non-profit entity that builds and maintains a fibre network.

Mr Joyce would only say that the NetCo concept was one of dozens that had been run by him as dozens of businesses and lobby groups vie for his cheque book.

Everything, for the moment, is still on the table.

10-year time frame
But although broadband lovers’ pulses will race on news that the first ground will be broken this year, Mr Joyce also cautioned that the prime minister had always projected a long time frame for the total roll-out.

“Within six years, we will have rolled out ultra fast broadband to schools, hospitals, business and the first tranche of homes. In the last four years we’ll complete the roll-out”.

Given the Castalia report’s contention that today’s broadband infrastructure, with tweaks, can serve home users for up to five years, the three big telcos and the minister may not be so far apart after all.