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Where's my UFB?

While doing a little light reading yesterday, I came across some very worrying news in respect to the roll-out of UFB in the area where I live.

I'd been told that Tokoroa would be one of the first areas to get UFB and for months now, contractors have been busy ripping up the streets of this little town and burying fibre.

All looked good and I was pretty sure that my uber-fast connection to cyberspace would be just a few short months away.

Then, while browsing some documents published by the local District Council, I came across some very worrying information.

While trawling through the Community and Assets report (PDF) from last month I read the following:

"Community Development staff have been investigating opportunities to utilise UltraFast Broadband as a mechanism to increase interest in Tokoroa from businesses outside the district. An action plan is being developed and information from other towns has been gathered to understand various promotional efforts regarding Ultrafast broadband.

Unfortunately the most significant factor to moving forward with a strategy or action plan is that service providers need to be offering connection packages. Vodafone/Telstraclear publically announced they would not be offering any future Ultrafast Broadband packages on 25 September 2012. Media commentators suspect that the same call will be made by Telecom in the New Year.

Having no service providers available and potentially no packages on offer, fibre connections to homes or businesses will not be available. In turn this will create substantial delays in any possible promotions. The first round of fibre connections were intended to be available to Tokoroa CBD from November 2012. Wanganui is a prime example of fibre being laid and no service providers offering connections.

It is suspected that Central Government will need to step in to ensure that their efforts to lay fibre are not in vain"

So what the hell is going on with the roll-out of UFB outside the major population centres of NZ?

As you can see on this document (PDF), the timeframe stated is "A five year build programme starting in Wanganui, Hamilton and Tauranga in 2011, with New Plymouth, Hawera and Tokoroa to follow".

Initially, Tokoroa was promised that connections would be available before the end of 2012 and indeed, the fibre is in place - but if no service providers (not even Telecom) are willing to hook up to that fibre -- what is the point?

This whole thing is starting to smell like the work of someone that couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Are any Aardvark readers already connected to the UFB and if so, what are your experiences?

Are we starting to see "slippage" or even a total absence of promised progress in other areas too?

Maybe I ought to talk to Kim and see if he'll pay to have my UFB installed :-)

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