Tuesday, 04 October 2022 09:50

Where's the investment?

Written by Milking It

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OPINION: The Government can crow about its 'major effort' to upgrade capacity on congested rural broadband networks but the reality on the ground is different.

Coverage, reliability and speed of mobile and internet services for many farming families and businesses are treading water, if not going backwards, the 2022 Federated Farmers Rural Connectivity Survey shows.

More than half of the nearly 1,200 farmers who responded to the survey report internet download speeds at or less than what could be considered a bare minimum (20 megabytes per second/Mbps) and those who said their mobile phone service had declined in the last 12 months jumped from 20% to 32%.

Is the Governmment really serious about helping the sector that underpins the lion's share of New Zealand's export earnings?

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