Telecommunications in New Zealand
Telecommunications in New Zealand are fairly typical for an industrialised country.
Fixed-line broadband and telephone services were largely provided through copper-based networks, but fibre-based services now represent the majority of connections. Spark New Zealand, One NZ, and 2degrees provide most services, while a number of smaller mobile virtual network operators also exist.
History
[edit]The first telegraph opened in New Zealand between the port of Lyttelton and Christchurch on 16 June 1862.[1] The line was constructed along the Lyttelton - Christchurch railway line.[1] The Vogel Era from 1870 saw a major expansion of the telegraph network, including an inter-island cable.[1] Telegraph lines increased from 699 miles (1,125 km) in 1866 to 3,170 miles (5,100 km) in 1876.[2] The first overseas telegraph cable between Australia and New Zealand began operation on 21 February 1876.[1]
The Electric Telegraph Department formed to manage the growing telegraph network was merged with Post Office Department to form the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department in 1881.[3]
Following early experiments with telephones on telegraph lines, the colonial government established a state monopoly in telephony with the Electric Telegraph Act 1875.[1] By 1900 there were 7,150 subscribers to telephone services.[4] Telephony subscriptions grew greatly over the next century, it was estimated by 1965 that 35% of New Zealanders had a telephone.[5]
New Zealand's first payphones were installed in 1910, which was 21 years after the first ones in the United States. They were originally bright red.[6]
By the 1980s there was major telephony traffic congestion on the New Zealand Post Office network.[7] In Auckland, the central exchange was overloaded and "verging on collapse"[7] elsewhere in New Zealand users often experienced network overloading and crashes.[7] Some areas still had manual telephone exchanges; Queenstown, for example, wasn't upgraded to automatic service until 1988.[8] The New Zealand Post Office was highly inefficient, being hamstrung as a government department and required to apply to the Treasury for capital investment.[7] As the Post Office was a monopoly, it had no incentive to improve customer service.[7]
The monopoly over telecommunications came to an end in 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990.[9] Competition began in the early 1990s, greatly reducing prices. The first competitor to market was Clear Communications, a consortium of North American and New Zealand businesses. Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011,[10] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased.[9] A large-scale rollout of gigabit-capable fibre to the premises, branded as Ultra-Fast Broadband, began in 2009 with a target of being available to 87% of the population by 2022, which was achieved.[11] As of 2017[update], the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure.[12]
Telephones
[edit]- Country calling code: 64
- The same code is also used to reach Scott Base in Antarctica and the United States base McMurdo Station nearby.
Mobile phone system
[edit]- Number of mobile connections: 5.8 million (2021)[13]
- Coverage available to approx 98% of the population.
- Operators:
- 2degrees (operating UMTS and LTE)
- Virtual network operators: Warehouse Mobile (owned by The Warehouse Group),[14] Nova Energy,[15] Orcon (owned by 2degrees),[16] Slingshot (owned by 2degrees), and Electric Kiwi.[17]
- One NZ (operating GSM, UMTS, HSDPA and LTE)[18]
- Virtual network operators: Flexiroam,[19] Kogan Mobile NZ,[20] Mighty Mobile (owned by Mighty Ape),[21] and Rocket Mobile (formerly MyRepublic).[22]
- Spark New Zealand (operating UMTS, HSDPA and LTE)[23]
- 2degrees (operating UMTS and LTE)
- Operators:
Fixed-line telephone system
[edit]- Number of fixed line connections: 1.92 million (2000)
- Individual lines available to 99% of residences.
- VoIP Cloud Based Voice services are now mainstream.
- Traditional Copper line Operators:
- Chorus Limited: A large numbers of ISPs (referred to as "retail service providers") retail Chorus' connections to personal and business customers. As a wholesaler, Chorus does not retail internet connections to end users.
Cable and microwave links
[edit]- Domestic:
- Optical fibre and microwave links between cities
- Submarine optical fibre cables between the North Island and the South Island
- International:
- Submarine cables:
- Hawaiki Cable (launched July 2018)[26]
- Southern Cross Cable (to Australia and Hawaii)
- TASMAN 2 (to Australia)
- Tasman Global Access (to Australia, completed March 2017)[27]
- Moana Cable (proposed)[28]
- Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (Pacific Ocean)
- Submarine cables:
Payphones
[edit]As of May 2022[update], there are approximately 2000 payphones in New Zealand, which few people use anymore due to the abundance of cell phones.[6] Some of them offer WiFi with a reception radius of 50 metres. Most calls made on these phones are 0800 numbers.[6] Telecom previously made phone cards, which had various designs such as New Zealand plants and birds. They were a fad for collectors; some cards would sell for up to $14,000.[29] Telecom phased these out completely in 1999,[30] which caused prices of phone cards price to drop significantly. Today, mint condition cards sell for $1.[29]
Radio
[edit]- Radio broadcast stations: AM 124, FM 290, shortwave 4 (1998), 4 on Freeview digital satellite.
- See also: List of radio stations in New Zealand
- Radios: 3.75 million (1997)
Television
[edit]- Television broadcast stations: 41 (plus 52 medium-power repeaters and over 650 low-power repeaters) (1997)
- These transmit 4 nationwide free-to-air networks and a few regional or local single transmitter stations. Analogue was phased out between September 2012 and December 2013
- Digital Satellite pay TV is also available and carries most terrestrial networks.
- Freeview digital free satellite with a dozen SD channels, with SD feeds of the terrestrial HD freeview channels.
- Freeview, free-to-air digital terrestrial HD and SD content.
- See also: List of New Zealand television channels
- Televisions: 1.926 million (1997)
Internet
[edit]- Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 36 (2000)
- Internet users: 4.55 million (2021)[31]
- Fixed internet connections: 1.24 million (2013)
- Country code (Top level domain): .nz
Telecommunications Development Levy
[edit]The government charges a $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy annually to fund improvements to communications infrastructure such as the Rural Broadband Initiative. It is payable by telecommunications firms with an operating revenue of over $10 million, in proportion to their qualified revenue.[32]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Newman 2008, Chapter 1.
- ^ Lloyd Pritchard 1970, pp. 131–132.
- ^ Shoebridge, Tim (11 March 2010). "Mail and couriers – Mail in the steam era, 1850s–1890s". Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
- ^ "An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand - Post Office". Te Ara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand. 1966. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
- ^ "An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand - Post Office - Inland Telecommunications". Te Ara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand. 1966. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
- ^ a b c "The reminders of a telco past still standing today". RNZ. 22 May 2022. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
- ^ a b c d e Newman 2008, Chapter 3.
- ^ "Reunion 30 years after Queenstown telephone exchange closes". Stuff. 27 March 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
- ^ a b Wilson, A. C. (March 2010). "Telecommunications - Telecom". Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
- ^ "Telecom separation". Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. 14 September 2015. Archived from the original on 11 August 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
- ^ "Broadband and mobile programmes - Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment". www.mbie.govt.nz.
- ^ "2017 Global ICT Development Index". International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 2018. Retrieved 18 September 2018.
- ^ "Annual Telecommunications Monitoring Report - 2021" (PDF).
- ^ "Warehouse Mobile".
- ^ "Endless Mobile, Nova Energy". Retrieved 15 May 2023.
- ^ "2degrees and Vocus NZ merger completes | 2degrees". www.2degrees.nz. 1 June 2022. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
- ^ "Electric Kiwi Expand Services with Kiwi Mobile". www.geekzone.co.nz. Retrieved 31 July 2024.
- ^ "Coverage at your location over 5G, 4G, 3G and even 2G. Look for Coverage everywhere. One NZ".
- ^ a b "New Zealand Flexiroam". Flexiroam. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ "Kogan Mobile Prepay Plans".
- ^ "Mighty Mobile: Mighty Ape, One NZ partnership offers unlimited high-speed prepay mobile plans".
- ^ "Rocket Mobile: Unlimited mobile data plans". Rocket Mobile. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
- ^ "Telecom New Zealand Website – Information about mobile network". Archived from the original on 8 March 2009. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
- ^ "Digital Island".
- ^ "Mobile plans". Retrieved 18 April 2024.
- ^ "Hawaiki opens new subsea route to the US with direct access to LA". IT Brief. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
- ^ O'Neill, Rob (30 March 2017). "Tasman Global Access cable lights up". ResellerNews. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
- ^ Ryan, Sophie (9 December 2015). "Here's what New Zealand's internet looks like". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
- ^ a b Edmunds, Susan (10 November 2016). "Collectible fad collapses leave buyers out of pocket". Stuff. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
- ^ "Telecom folds hand in phone card battle". NZ Herald. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
- ^ "Digital 2021: New Zealand". DataReportal – Global Digital Insights. 9 February 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
- ^ "2012/13 Telecommunications Development Levy | Commerce Commission". Archived from the original on 6 March 2014. Retrieved 6 March 2014.
Further reading
[edit]- Lloyd Pritchard, Muriel F. (1970). An Economic History of New Zealand to 1939. Auckland: Collins.
- Newman, Keith (2008). Connecting the Clouds - the Internet in New Zealand. Activity Press. ISBN 9780958263443.
- This article incorporates public domain material from The World Factbook (2024 ed.). CIA. (Archived 2003 edition.)