Selwyn_Times: January 10, 2024

26 Selwyn Times Wednesday January 10 2024
SELWYN RURAL LIFE
Advertising Feature
Rural broadband – issues and choices
• By Isabelle Teresa
The issues with rural broadband are
multiple, and include services costing
more, not performing as well, or simply
being unavailable. The situation is
such that, last June, the Commerce
Commission launched a detailed study
of the internet options available to
the “significant number” of rural New
Zealanders not covered by the fibre
broadband network.
Until those findings come out, what
information can guide rural customers?
The Commission runs two ongoing
surveys that could help.
The first survey is about providers. It
asks 2,400 residential consumers every six
months about their satisfaction with their
broadband provider for both technical
performance and customer service, and
publishes the results as rankings.
Rural users should be aware that
there is no audience split-out; instead
the residential sample is weighted by
age, gender and region to be nationally
representative. Also, only providers
with a market share of 5% or more are
ranked, knocking out the smaller players.
Nevertheless, these reports are still a
useful indication of customer opinion.
The second survey drills down into
technical performance. The Commission
publishes quarterly reports from the
Measuring Broadband New Zealand
programme, based on specific usage
data gathered from volunteer
households across the country.
These reports give far more
detailed information about the
technical performance of different
types of broadband for particular
types of uses. They also break the
analysis down to providers and
to regions – although, typically
of nationwide publications, the
whole South Island is one region! Despite
this, if you need evidenced information,
this is the detailed report for you.
Rural-specific services do exist.
Farmside offers a wide range of plans
that address various rural family and
farming scenarios, including multi-site,
asset tracking, data boosts and zero-rated
partnerships with some core services. In
some cases, a technician needs to install
the kit.
The gamechanger has, of course, been
Starlink. The speeds are phenomenal and
these are literally the set-up instructions:
1) Plug it in.
2) Point at sky.
It also helpfully adds that you can do
those instructions in either order!
So although rural broadband has been
a longstanding issue, the options and
information out there are evergrowing,
hopefully helping all rural customers
achieve the best option for their
situation.
The Right Product for the Right Price
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Vehicle Shelters Landscaping Timber Sheep & Deer Gates
Animal Shelters Residential Fencing Deer Fencing
Utility Workshops Post & Rail Fencing Electric Fencing
Canterbury
Timber & Harware
Y O U R L O C A L T I M B E R M E R C H A N T
E N Q U I R E W I T H I N F O R
Y O U R F R E E Q U O T E
OPEN:
Mon-Fri
Saturday
7:00am - 5:00pm
8:00am - 12:00pm
03 347 7465 sales@cthl.co.nz www.cthl.co.nz
167 Manion Road, Rolleston
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