Broadband usage for rural communities in the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand government's Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) aims to invest 400 million New Zealand dollar to provide 99% of New Zealanders with access to 50 Mbps peak broadband speed, with the remaining 1% at 10 Mbps by 2025. By 2017, stage 1 of the RBI has been completed, and research is needed to find out the level of usage, proficiency, and productivity achieved by then. Therefore, a survey was carried out to learn whether the rural residents and their communities are making good use of the new fast broadband connection. The survey collected data from 217 rural residents from North Island, and the results indicate that about half of the interview respondents are satisfied with the new broadband speed and the reliability which is offered by RBI stage 1. However, there is about 28% of the respondents disagreed with them. The majority of the Internet uses for rural residents are information searching, reading news, online entertainment, and online banking. Besides that, only a small proportion of respondents know how to utilize the Internet in their work/business and benefit/profit from it, e.g., using cloud technology capabilities and online marketing campaigns, etc. by then. Therefore, we argue that information and communications technologies (ICT) adoption is not only the availability of the infrastructure but also the beneficial outcomes of Internet availability. In other words, Internet skills in-depth training and education need to catch up with the infrastructure deployment, which is useful to fuel the digital productivity and inclusion for booming rural economies. The survey data-driven findings presented in this paper could serve as a reference to inform government policymakers and those who wish to create, invest, and take actions to speed up the economic and social growth of rural communities in Aotearoa New Zealand through the Internet while shifting from the Internet speed and traffic volume-driven to a more effective Internet connectivity and value-added driven rural economy.