New Plymouth fully connected to Ultra-Fast Broadband

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Minister for Communications

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19 February 2016

      Media statement

New Plymouth fully connected to Ultra-Fast Broadband

Communications Minister Amy Adams has announced that the $31 million Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) build in New Plymouth has been completed.

New Plymouth is the fourteenth urban area where UFB has been deployed, and the second in Taranaki after Hawera was completed in February 2015.

“Around 25,000 homes and businesses in New Plymouth can connect to UFB and by last Christmas around 14.4 per cent of those had connected,” Ms Adams says.

Twenty-six schools in New Plymouth are now able to connect to UFB. Nearly all of have either taken up a service with the Network for Learning, or are in the process of doing so.

“New Plymouth was one of the first places I visited to launch the build of UFB in April 2012, so it’s gratifying to be back less than four years later with the infrastructure fully in place and roaring into action.”

In addition to the $1.35 billion funding for the UFB initiative, a further $210 million has been set aside to extend UFB to another 200,000 New Zealanders.

“While celebrating New Plymouth’s build completion, I’m aware that the task of improving connectivity throughout Taranaki isn’t yet complete. Smaller rural centres and the region as a whole would like to see better broadband, and the Government is eager to deliver that where it’s feasible,” Ms Adams says.

The process for deciding the next UFB towns is underway, and progress is also being made to extend the Rural Broadband Initiative and set up a $50 million Mobile Blackspot Fund.

List of 14 completed UFB towns:

Whangarei, Te Awamutu, Oamaru, Cambridge, Tokoroa, Hawera, Ashburton, Blenheim, Whanganui, Taupō, Timaru, Greymouth, Masterton, New Plymouth

 

Media contact: Julian Light 021 243 8528 or Lauren Wallis 021 918 329

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