Will they fly? : PPPs and the ultrafast broadband initiative

The political perception of New Zealand's broadband market performance as ‘poor' has underpinned many significant changes to the telecommunications policy and regulatory environments since 2001. Most recently, this has been manifested in substantial government subsidies by way of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for an ultra-fast broadband (UFB) network that promises to deliver fibre connections with upload/download speeds of 100Mbps/50Mbps to 75% of New Zealanders by 2019. Bert Sadowski and Bronwyn Howell explore the pros and cons of the New Zealand PPPs.