Overview

In its 2002 Budget the government announced an objective of ensuring that all 900 isolated rural schools in NZ had access to broadband Internet services.

The announcement followed work on rural broadband (RB) over the previous 18 months by both the Ministry for Economic Development and the Ministry of Education.

The latter wanted to provide rural schools with fast access to existing digital teaching resources located in the cities and offshore, with the objectives of

• Improving administrative efficiency and teaching effectiveness
• Enhancing the professional development of teachers
• Expanding e-learning ... and
• Providing a wider curriculum choice and teacher expertise, including two-way video-conferencing.

With those objectives in mind, the Ministry had already tentatively explored the provision of RB services with Telecom but had received a lukewarm response, the company believing that provincial services were a financial liability. Its proposed budget of $28 million was also beyond the Ministry's financial resources.

For its part, MED had a complementary set of objectives. Its ambition was to strengthen the rural by economy by

• Enabling local authorities, tourist organisations, the health sector and businesses to have high-speed access to the Internet
• Generating a competitive telecommunications market outside the main cities. MED's concern was that provincial NZ would languish without high-speed, price-competitive Internet access.

The government's launch of Project PROBE, with an initial budget of $39 million integrated the objectives of both Ministries.

Following the evaluation of project management tenders by the PROBE Steering Group (PSG), a trans-Tasman ICT consultancy, Amos Aked Swift Ltd (AAS), was chosen to implement the project.

PROBE was essentially complete by the end of 2005, having successfully provided broadband access to 891 schools at a final cost of $45 million.