Government-subsidized fiber: Careful what you wish for

[Commentary] The bold policies of the Australian and New Zealand governments to fund nationwide national fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband networks have drawn attention of late for all the wrong reasons. So far, Australia has spent around $28,000 for each of its 260,000 residential connections, whilst New Zealand’s uptake rate after two years stands at just a little over 5% of premises passed. The inability of such ‘grand policies’ to deliver upon the aspirations held for them is in large part due to some of the well-established reasons why politics and the telecommunications industry have historically made such uneasy bedfellows.

[Howell is general manager for the New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation]