The New Zealand government now is early in the process of allocating some portion of the $252 million it has set aside to try and jumpstart fiber-to-the-home services. The money will be doled out over a five-year period, with the first disbursements scheduled to be made in June 2009.

 

There are different rules for projects in urban areas and rural areas, but the urban projects must include a financial match equivalent to the government award. Entities receiving grants also must agree to sell wholesale access to duct and dark fiber facilities. That means the New Zealand plan is somewhere between plans requiring full wholesale access to fully-provisioned optical loops and regulatory regimes that do not require any mandatory wholesale access.

 

In addition to providing seed funding to target specific infrastructure gaps, a complementary initiative is underway to stimulate public spending on broadband. There demand aggregation efforts might include greater coordination in the purchasing decisions of public entities (particularly in the health and education sectors). Other demand side initiatives also are under consideration, the government says.

 

Networks built using the grants be required to provide one or more points of interconnection, which will support third party service providers on a non-discriminatory basis. Connections to other local, national and international networks also must be provided.

 

Other requirements for physical interconnection, including space, cooling, security, access and power, also are part of the requirements for getting an award.

 

"Dark fiber" providers who do not provide direct services to retail buyers are encouraged to apply, the government says. In fact, there seems to be some preference for such applicants, who wish to operate the access networks as a condominium facility, with actual service providers lighting their own fibers and providing their own services.