Smith Lockwood: Telecommunications Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Lockwood: Telecommunications Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:636;Page:7145] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 I do not intend to take up too much of the Committee’s time on this. There is a matter though that I put in front of the Minister in the chair David Cunliffe. I was reminded of it by Gordon Copeland’s contribution during the second reading which touched a cord with me as a rural resident. The matter relates to rural telecommunications users. 
At the Finance and Expenditure Committee it became a bit of a joke that on my computer at home I have access to the Internet at a speed of 23 kilobytes per second on a typical day. This is so slow that I cannot read PDF files as I am not home long enough on weekends to download the Adobe Reader—it would take more than all weekend to download it and I do not want to leave the computer running when I am not there. So I am acutely aware of the problem for rural New Zealanders. In the select committee we were told by Telecom that if this is not handled very carefully investment in access to the Internet and telecommunications for rural New Zealanders will actually be delayed as the focus will go into areas of higher population. 
A submission that a lot of the select committee members were fascinated by was the one made to us by the Institution of Professional Engineers. What the members of the institution said to us was very significant. They said that unbundling the local loop on its own will not achieve significant improvement of access to high-speed telecommunications. The issue is the physical length of the local loop. It has been discovered recently in most OECD countries around the world that the length of that copper loop is hugely important and that one cannot deliver really high-speed Internet access over distances beyond 1800 to 1900 metres—that is 1.8 to 1.9 kilometres. If one wants to deliver say 5 megabytes per second—remember I talked about 23 kilobytes; five megabytes is many many times faster than that—and one wants to get up to 90 percent of one’s customers with that kind of access a copper wire needs to be of no more than 800 metres. 
I ask the Minister what the typical length of the local loop of copper wire is here in New Zealand. We were told by the Institution of Professional Engineers that to get that kind of average length for the local loop one would need an investment of something like $1.5 billion. If one were to try to deliver it with mobile one would need vast numbers of cell sites. If we want this kind of high-speed access the length of that local loop is crucially important. For rural New Zealanders it is hugely important. From memory I am about 10 kilometres from my local exchange. So far from having 800 metres of copper wire I have 10 kilometres of it. Technologically the ability of this reform to deliver any improvement in access for me is very limited. 
So those are my specific questions to the Minister the Hon David Cunliffe during this Committee stage. What is the typical length of the local loop here in New Zealand? How concerned is the Government about the advice from the Institution of Professional Engineers that local loop unbundling technologically cannot deliver the kinds of speeds the Government is looking for? The length of the local loop—of the copper wire—is hugely important. I am interested to know what the Government proposes to do about that. Will it just be ignored? Is there a plan to somehow ensure there is this kind of investment in local loop technology? Quite clearly with the reform that this bill will bring into being Telecom will not voluntarily make that investment; Telecom will be investing in areas of high population. What will happen to rural New Zealand?