Taking the initiative: lessons from New Zealand's experience with the ultra-fast broadband initiative

Many governments are considering, or have begun to implement, plans to facilitate the roll-out of high speed broadband. This paper considers New Zealand's ultra-fast broadband initiative, a global leader in government-assisted fibre-to-the-premise networks. It describes how the New Zealand Government addressed the numerous challenges involved with next generation access networks, including funding, demand-side and supply-side risk and the involvement of the incumbent and other private operators. New Zealand's experience offers valuable lessons for countries considering a similar initiative, and this paper extracts and summarises these lessons.