Synopsis
At industry Roundtables in Auckland and Wellington, in December 2009, some 60 senior executives from within the New Zealand ICT industry came together to discuss the government’s visionary UFB (ultra-fast broadband) plans.
These plans have received widespread support in New Zealand and are also being keenly watched by other governments, notably the Obama administration. In October 2009, Paul Budde gave a briefing on these plans to Professor Susan Crawford, the President’s personal advisor on technology in the White House.
Similar interest has been shown by the Secretary General of the ITU in Geneva and several European governments. It is not often that New Zealand is one of the leaders in the international telecoms world.
However we now have to make the move from vision to implementation and in the spirit of government’s invitation to participate in this discussion the industry – as presented at the Roundtables – has followed their discussions over the last few weeks and would like to present some further ideas and recommendations to the government on this phase of the process.