We discussed about how businesses can benefit from IP technologies in the last issue.  This issue provides an update on how much we can reap or how far we are from reaping the benefits of IP.  IP stands for Internet Protocol.  We will learn that the availability of Internet connections with high bandwidth is limiting our benefits and the government has announced a plan to resolve the bottleneck that stops the progress of the country.  One source indicates that we will get Internet connections to homes and offices with a bandwidth as high as 100Mbps.  The following 2 paragraphs are largely summarized from reports published by New Zealand Computerworld.

A lacklustre broadband infrastructure has led New Zealand to once again rate well below average in another global survey of our digital proficiency.  New Zealand ranked 16th out of 25 innovation driven economies on the scorecard.  The US topped the list while Australia came 8th and Poland was last.  This Connectivity Scorecard was published by the London Business School and an US-based consulting firm.  It is on the infrastructure component where New Zealand seems to have faltered.  The study found consumer infrastructure was the country’s weak point.  Meanwhile, our PC penetration is average but we have a relatively good distribution of secure servers. This showed New Zealand had a strong e-commerce infrastructure.

Communications minister Steven Joyce admits that government will be “walking a bit of a tightrope” in spending $1.5 billion on a national broadband network.  A two-level structure is contemplated, with a Crown Fibre Investment Company putting money into as many as 25 Local Fibre Companies as joint ventures with the private sector. The network will initially be formed around 25 largest towns to put broadband into 75% of the population in 10 years.  As for the proposition that fibre to the home will simply make us a nation of entertainment junkies, Joyce points to the practical business applications, from mapping products through commercial software-as-a service to the huge potential of tele-working all demanding increasing bandwidth.

In the meantime, we are still able to reap a lot of benefits from using the Internet for a host of productivity activities such as emailing, web browsing, online commerce, searching, etc.  The data format has to be largely text and graphics with small windows for videos due to our existing poor bandwidth.  We will have to wait a couple of years before we can deploy IP video surveillance or video conferencing over the Internet cost-effectively.  Streaming videos from one megapixel camera requires well over 3Mbps of bandwidth.