Admittedly it has a relaxed, ten-year timeframe, but even during its first phase the government’s $1.5 billion fibre-to-the-home initiative has fallen behind schedule – and to a much greater degree than previous reports have indicated.

Speaking at the 10th annual Telecommunications and ICT conference (TelCon10) in Auckland today, Communications and IT minister Steven Joyce said that a projected one-month delay in reporting back on submissions has stretched to two-and-a-half months.

Originally, Mr Joyce had been due to report back to the cabinet on submissions on the Crown fibre discussion document by late May. Now, the report back is due, tentatively, in mid-August.

Mr Joyce said in wading through the 104 submissions, MED officials had realised that many issues were more complex and “inter-locked” than expected. The minister cited the Telecommunications Service Obligation (the old Kiwi Share) as one example.

Getting the broadband decision right was more important that meeting the original timetable, the minister said.

Beyond the revelation that delays were worse than anticipated, the minister added little new detail.

Glimmer of hope for old-school telcos
In response to an NBR question about whether he was actively considering Telecom and Vodafone’s respective alternative proposals for a single, national fibre network, or was still committed to his original regional model, the minister responded.

“We are looking at the proposals; it would be remiss of us not to but it would be too early to say if we’ve moving away from the regional thing.”

Certainly, Telecom and Vodafone can only draw hope from the two-and-a-half month delay, which indicates that alternatives are being seriously addressed.

Speaking immediately afterward, Labour Communications and IT spokeswoman Clare Curran picked up on the possible Telecom comeback.

“How can the rest of the industry have confidence that Telecom won’t revert to its old behaviour?”, responded Labour’s Clare Curran. “Giving a whole network to a single company that hasn’t been so crash hot in the past” would be risky.

Ms Curran said that if Telecom does get the go ahead for building and controlling a single national fibre network, there would be concerns over whether the entire network was open or – as Telecom’s submission seems to indicate – only Crown-funded segments would be open.

“There’s a cloud of uncertainty surrounding broadband and it’s time to clear it,” said Ms Curran, who noted that $290 million had been allocated in the budget for the current year, but still has made no indication how it will be spent.

“Is this the fast start we were promised?”

Redefining the regions
The minister did indicate that his thinking was still largely around his original proposal for 25 local fibre companies, however. In another snippet of fresh news, he said he was actively considering submissions that the 25 LFC areas (here) should not simply be the 25 largest population centres. Factors such as potential population growth, and potential economic impact, could also be taken into account.

Mr Joyce reiterated his comments that rural broadband will be addressed separately, with a $48 million budget. The minister said he was soliciting opinion from private companies and would make an announcement “in the coming weeks”.

Ms Curran called $48 million a puny sum for rural New Zealand.

The minister also repeated earlier comments that ensuring competition at the “layer two” or retail level was a key issue.

It is important that householders get access to multiple virtual Lans over the same fibre connection, Mr Joyce said. In practical terms, that would mean a home subscriber could choose different retail providers for, say, broadband, pay TV and voice services.