Fran O'Sullivan was clearly strongly influenced by the views of Japanese telecoms entrepreneur Sachio Semmoto. She reports his views on New Zealand's poor infrastructure and necessary policy response in today's NZ Herald. We recommend readers read the whole article. But one section jumped out at us:
But he's critical of the Government's recent Budget announcements: The $340 million Digital Pathway Fund will still not be sufficient to fast forward the switch in emphasis needed to get New Zealand on to a better broadband platform, he says. Its focus on fibre - when many advanced societies are switching to greater use of mobile technologies - needs to be balanced.
New Zealand will simply "get killed" if it does not tackle such issues swiftly and build a speedy information highway to connect to nations with which it wants to do business.
National should take note of this. National's broadband policy is based on fibre. This is important but the advantage of the Government's policy is that it is technology neutral. It will allow wireless solutions where these make sense.
