Should we care about broadband?
Telco hits out at National’s fibre plan
This month the CEO of our second largest telecommunications company said faster broadband to the home will mostly result in more downloads of pornography and movies rather than improvements to productivity. Shortly afterwards the MD another network infrastructure company piped up with a “me too” statement saying the vast majority of New Zealand’s wealth is created in businesses and not the home.
He was probably correct in saying that business generates most of the wealth. But that’s not the reason I find his statements frustrating. I’m a firm believer that high-speed telecommunications for citizens is going to be critical for New Zealand in the future.
I’m not alone in disagreeing with TelstraClear. InternetNZ followed up the initial news with a release of their own that said “high-speed broadband already allows effective work-from-home and telepresence arrangements, greater social interaction through video contact between family members”
I do find myself defending ubiquitous high-speed Internet on occasion. Sometimes it’s hard to get across why I feel it’s so important. It’s very easy for people to assume, like the aforementioned business leaders, that faster Internet is just going to be used for more time-wasting or simple entertainment.
So I’m planning some blog posts to describe what I use broadband for, and why I think the more homes we connect the better things will be.