Internet service is patchy in New Zealand, but in general we do quite well. Some of us enjoy high-speed, relatively inexpensive broadband, while others are restricted to 56K dial-up, and some suffer from erratic, slow or non-existent connections.

Statistics New Zealand tell us in their 2006 QuickStats for Phones, net and fax — Households section:

• 60.5 percent of households in New Zealand have access to the Internet.
• Throughout New Zealand, 74.2 percent of households have access to a cellphone.

Furthermore:

• 1.011 million households had access to the Internet at home in the December 2006 quarter.
• 33.2 percent of New Zealand households had broadband access to the Internet, while 30.9 percent had dial-up access.
• 69.0 percent of individuals used the Internet in the previous 12 months; 28.6 percent made an online purchase.
• Almost 2.6 million New Zealanders (80.0 percent) had personal use of a mobile phone in the previous 12 months.

[Via : Household Use of Information and Communication Technology: 2006 - Statistics New Zealand.]

Much of our Internet access comes to us courtesy of undersea cables that circle the Pacific. See Colin Jackson’s post and links: Submarine cables — our world is wrapped in fibre:

…the main cable we rely on is called Southern Cross. … really a ring of cables rather than just one cable. It forms a ring passing through Auckland, Sydney, California, Hawaii and back to Auckland.

But that cable is a ring — it’s hollow in the centre. And while the South Pacific looks like a great big empty ocean, in fact it’s dotted with a heap of countries who do truly suffer from shockingly bad Internet connections. Slow, expensive dial-up is often the best you can hope for if you live in places such as Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomons.

Our Pacific cousins have a tough time of it. But that may be about to change. Colin Jackson writes in Wiring the South Pacific:

Many Pacific states have been missing out on the technology we all take for granted. They have slow, expensive satellite connections that most local people can’t afford. The whole point of the Internet is that everyone joins in, but Pacific peoples have mainly been left out of the loop.

Until now, that is. PICISOC - the Pacific island chapter of the global Internet Society - has announced a project to lay a fibre to many South Pacific states.

PICISOC report a couple of initiatives:

… a ‘Pan-Pacific Satellite-based Rural Internet Connectivity System (RICS) aimed at complementing current commercial providers for Internet connectivity at rural and remote areas in all Pacific Islands.

… a sub-marine cable … that will link twelve South Pacific Island countries and territories to unlimited bandwidth opportunities. This cable network would link from the east, French Polynesia, Cook Islands, Niue, American Samoa, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and PNG in the west. … All 12 countries have expressed their interest in this new network and assuming they confirm their commitment by the end of 2007, it is likely that the new South Pacific Islands Network (SPIN) can be implemented in 2008.

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