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NZ Plan For Fiber To the Home
Ars has a note about New Zealand's plans for nationwide broadband access, which will induce envy in many North American readers. "New Zealand has decided not to sit around while incumbent DSL operators milk the withered dugs of their cash cow until it keels over from old age. Instead, the Kiwis have established a government-owned corporation to invest NZ$1.5 billion for open-access fiber to the home. By 2020, 75 percent of residents should have, at a bare minimum, 100Mbps down/50 Mbps up with a choice of providers. Crown Fibre Holdings Limited is the company, and it's wholly owned by the government — for now — and the company's mission couldn't be any clearer. Two of its six guiding principles include 'focusing on building new infrastructure, and not unduly preserving the "legacy assets" of the past' and 'avoiding "lining the pockets" of existing broadband network providers.'"
First of all we should be able to mark the article a troll. That's just ridiculous.
Second that's only 355 USD per person I'm guessing they're not going to get everybody for that.
FFS learn some math.
$355 per person over 10 years is dirt cheap.
It's not even the price of one month's extra internet service per year.
And no, they're not going to get everyone. The title of TFA is "75% of New Zealanders to get 100Mbps fiber by 2020"
Could you fail any harder?
Here's how it works: every fiber builder who takes government money needs to lay basic, unmanaged dark fiber that any ISP can light in order to offer service to a particular home or business. The fiber companies can also run some particular Layer 2 services, but they can't offer full-blown Internet access directly. Instead, they are allowed to sell Internet access to their own retail unit so long as it operates like a separate business, and all other ISPs must be offered access at the same rate.
That is the kind of competition most capitalists talk about, but rarely see in the real world.
If New Zealand doesn't end up with higher speeds and lower costs, I'll eat a sheep's eye.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That means I'll be able to burn through my data cap in 11 min. flat. After that I'll have 29d 23h 49m left to stare at my the last episode of lost and wonder WTF just happened.
Just like NZ says it's the greenest nation around so too will the lie be heard: "we have the best internet service one the planet."