National Broadband Map

The State Services Commission (SSC) says its National Broadband Map will be a valuable tool for applicants to the newly launched Broadband Investment Fund.

The National Broadband Map (broadbandmap.govt.nz) charts New Zealand's Broadband landscape and provides information and tools to help demand aggregation and infrastructure planning.

The National Broadband Map will be a useful tool for Broadband Investment Fund applicants trying to find out where demand for their services is coming from.

Alongside the Broadband Map, a Joint Procurement Group is being established in SSC to facilitate demand aggregation for broadband services in the state sector. This group will co-ordinate the purchase of broadband services across health, education, research and core government services.

To begin with the group will run a small number of demand aggregation pilots focusing on the health and education areas to test the value of calculating public sector demand in a region.

Five million dollars have been allocated for that task from Vote Communications. If the pilots prove successful, it will unlock another $35 million already allocated in principle to demand aggregation.

Background

The $340 million Broadband Investment Fund is to be used to accelerate broadband investment in three critical areas:

• facilitating high speed broadband to businesses and entities such as municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals in urban centres;
• extending the reach of broadband into under-served regions, particularly in the rural sector;
• and improving the resilience of New Zealand's international connections.