Background

There is increasing recognition that broadband is a key enabler of economic growth and development. It is a key component of the Government's agenda of transforming New Zealand into a high-income, knowledge-based economy, through its Digital Strategy.1

The Government's recent regulatory stock-take of the telecommunications sector indicated that New Zealand's broadband uptake is well below that of our OECD partners. A key characteristic of the best OECD countries in terms of broadband performance is the vigour of competition in their telecommunication markets, combined with regulatory regimes which pro-actively encourage competition.

Following the stock-take, the Government announced a package of measures for the telecommunications sector, in support of its economic transformation agenda. The package aims to:

• facilitate competition by improving access at the wholesale level to the fixed local-loop telecommunications network;
• encourage investment in alternative infrastructure (such as fibre, wireless and satellite networks);
• future-proof the regulatory environment to technology change and market dynamics; and
• continue the development and implementation of the Digital Strategy to encourage the smart use of information and communications technologies (ICT).
  

This paper discusses the second of these objectives, the encouragement of investment in alternative infrastructure, specifically, wireless infrastructure.

Broadband Wireless Access2 (BWA) is largely used for the digital transmission of data with bandwidth capacity significantly greater than that required for telephony (e.g. internet applications). The convergence of data transmission, communications and broadcasting technologies, however, means that BWA services can compete with and, under favourable conditions, replace existing internet, telephony and broadcasting networks. This is particularly true of the "last kilometre" from network to consumer, where the ratio of infrastructure cost to usage revenue is relatively high.

Delivery of broadband in New Zealand is predominantly through Telecom's national wired network, either by Telecom itself or by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) accessing the Telecom network. In Christchurch and Wellington, TelstraClear offers telephony, broadband and television services via its proprietary cable networks, but elsewhere, there are no such alternatives. There is, however, an increasing number of regional ISPs delivering broadband and, in some areas, voice-over-Internet protocol (VOIP), in addition to the cellular broadband offerings at 800, 900 MHz and 2.1 GHz bands. These services are deployed using, variously, "public park" spectrum under the General User Licensing Regime, management rights in the 3.5 GHz and 2 GHz spectrum bands and local fibre networks.

Under the Digital Strategy, the Government launched Project PROBE to promote regional broadband via primary and secondary schools. Although successful, further initiatives are required to build upon what has, so far, been achieved in deploying broadband, including BWA, nationwide.

This paper invites industry and other stakeholders to make submissions on identified spectrum allocation opportunities for BWA in New Zealand. It seeks their views on the optimal use of each band and the mix of technologies that would achieve this; their interest in and intentions of deploying particular technologies for each band; and their views on various spectrum management arrangements proposed in this paper.

1 For more details see the Digital Strategy website.

2 For the purposes of this paper, "Broadband Wireless Access" is defined as any wireless broadband service, offering data bit-rates above 256 kbps.