February 24th, 2009
There are plans afoot to spend $1.5b on providing high speed broadband to the majority of New Zealanders (about 75% of all homes).
This post discusses the following themes:
- “Build it and they will come” is a recipe for disaster
- Why not make the most of what we already have?
By way of introduction, I was pushing the idea of “Broadband for All” in 2002 when I became the Economic Development Manager for the South Waikato District Council.
The District was one of the pioneers in the area of community-owned broadband infrastructure, and we learned many valuable lessons. (See: Connecting Communities for more details - http://www.remarkable.co.nz/connecting_communities/index.html)
Based on these lessons, here are some comments about the current proposal:
a) I have a hard time seeing the economic benefit of spending $1.5b without knowing, at least in broad terms, how the additional bandwidth will be used.
Two related thoughts:
i) During 2006 I spent several months in Seoul, Korea. Korea has a brilliant internet infrastructure. But from what I saw, it seemed to me that it was all just an extension of pay TV catering to a passive audience watching TV and videos.
Unlimited overseas TV channels via the Internet is a waste of $1.5b.
Do we really want to spend $1.5b so everyone can watch “Shortland Street” re-runs 24/7 on their PCs?
ii) The discussion around our broadband infrastructure seems to be a Wellington-driven top-down process dominated by the technology sector. This “build it and they will come” approach is setting us up to fail - after wasting a huge amount of time and money.
During 2002-2003 the following groups emerged from our “Connecting Communities” process which was about how to make the best use of a community-owned broadband infrastructure in the South Waikato.
Each sector had different priorities and timetables. The groups included:
Business Sector Group
Community Organisations
Education - Pre-School and Primary
Education - Secondary
Education - Adult
Golden Oldies
Government
Maori
Pacific People
Rural Businesses / Farming
Social and Health Agencies
Tirau Community
Tokoroa Businesses
Unemployed
Youth
There is NO way that a top-down plan dominated by the tech sector and bureaucrats in Wellington can develop a better plan than one derived via communities.
Bottom line - BEFORE spending any money on bandwidth, determine the needs of every community in NZ at a local level – by using (say) Local Government Authorities.
Then establish and support the equivalent of what we called “Sector Groups” and “Steering Groups” within each local area.
Then aggregate regional demand and timetables to a national level.
And THEN use the tech sector to help each community achieve their goals via this “bottom-up” planned process.
All of this can be done 12-15 months. Total cost, assuming on “training the trainers” and supporting each Council through the process, perhaps $25m.
So, for a tiny fraction of $1.5b as a nation we get to figure out what we actually need.
We involve thousands of committed NZers across all sectors of our society and develop the infrastructure we actually need - and most importantly we have in hand the training and implementation plans required to maximise the return on any investment.
In other words, we figure out what our people want, and then we help them make it happen!
b) Why not make the most of what we already have?
Two related thoughts here as well:
i) The vast majority of web sites in NZ are little more than “brochureware” - they have been set up by graphics designers who have limited skills when it comes to search engine optimisation and/or pay per click promotion. As a result most NZ sites get very little traffic and the majority NZ businesses are not set up to leverage an information-rich “New Economy”.
So, before businesses can leverage the existing infrastructure, they need to move beyond brochureware and understand the web. Spending money on a public awareness campaign would be a good start.
The content for such a public awareness campaign is best summarised by Kevin Kelly. (See “New Rules for the New Economy” - written over 10 years ago http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.09/newrules.html. For a preview of things to come see http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html)
ii) Using the existing infrastructure we could easily develop 1 million new web sites making $100+ a week. This would contribute $5b to the NZ economy each year - about 15% of our gross current exports. $5b would “balance” our economy. (Note: We actually import NZ$5b more than we export! And we don’t have to worry about shipping costs - electrons are weightless.)
Sounds like a stupid idea at first - but it is possible within 12-18 months.
- Most of these web sites (and/or blogs) would only need to be 5-10 pages selling (say) ebooks and/or monthly memberships.
- Pretty much anyone passionate about a subject can create a US$20 e-book with about 8 hours of effort. And, blogs selling 3rd party products would take only an hour or two each week to maintain.
- Money-making sites can be set up quickly using templates. One per household is possible - everyone has their own passions.
- Niche marketing is the way to go for most NZers - for a background on marketing to niches see “The Long Tail” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html).
To kick off this idea… instead of spending $1.5b on fibre, what if each NZ household was able to get a free domain for 12 months plus access to free templates and online training that helped them to develop web sites that sell.
Total cost: NZ$100m
Elapsed time: 12-18 months
Additional Infrastructure ex the NZ Government: $zero
Renewed hope as NZers embrace the web: Priceless
Comments please!
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