RBI: Bridging the digital divide

City dwellers enjoy the benefits of both fixed and wireless telecommunications services. The Vodafone/Telecom Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) solution will bring the same benefits to rural New Zealand.

The ultimate success of the RBI will be measured by the extent to which it drives uptake and delivers both the productivity and social benefits the rural community requires. Our focus will be to deliver these benefits quickly and cost effectively in a competitive environment. Voice and broadband services will be available over both fixed and wireless technologies and the services will be comparable to those available in urban areas, in terms of both quality and price. They will also provide a foundation for future services, which will be enhanced over time as demand matures and technology advances.

The key benefits for rural communities include:

• Addressing the issue of isolation caused by a lack of mobile and internet access felt by many in the rural community
  1. Issues with staff retention at rural businesses and farms
  2. Parents and older adults want mobile contact to stay in touch with family and to complete the many communications and transactions of working and household life
  3. Teens and young adults want mobile connectivity to stay in contact with peers and broadband so they can use the internet for educational purposes
• Providing the benefits of enhanced wireless coverage, creating a connected world where someone's location is no longer relevant. People will be able to get information and communicate with others wherever and whenever they need to - putting them on the same ground as their urban counterparts and competitors.
• Dramatically increasing competition for the benefit of rural customers and communities. Similarly, there will be opportunities for service providers to purchase wholesale broadband services as the basis for providing competitive services to end-users.
• Significantly improving access to healthcare and health-related information for rural populations through the use of mobility devices. It also vastly improves the ability to diagnose and track medical issues and gather information from patients.
• Improving emergency services. 70% of 111 calls are made on cellular networks. There will also be new coverage to many remote rural communities and roads that currently do not have mobile phone coverage, which could save lives in an emergency.
• Ability to deploy emerging applications and devices (such as sensors and meters for machine to machine (M2M) communication and monitoring). M2M technology will increasingly underpin key areas of the economy, for example, the smart (green) grid, networked homes, healthcare in the home and transportation.