Telecommunications in New Zealand are fairly typical for an industrialised country.
Fixed-line broadband and telephone services were largely provided through copper-based networks, but fibre-based services now represent the majority of connections. Spark New Zealand, One NZ, and 2degrees provide most services, while a number of smaller mobile virtual network operators also exist.
The first telegraph opened in New Zealand between the port of Lyttelton and Christchurch on 16 June 1862. [1] The line was constructed along the Lyttelton - Christchurch railway line. [1] The Vogel Era from 1870 saw a major expansion of the telegraph network, including an inter-island cable. [1] Telegraph lines increased from 699 miles (1,125 km) in 1866 to 3,170 miles (5,100 km) in 1876. [2] The first overseas telegraph cable between Australia and New Zealand began operation on 21 February 1876. [1]
The Electric Telegraph Department formed to manage the growing telegraph network was merged with Post Office Department to form the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department in 1881. [3]
Following early experiments with telephones on telegraph lines, the colonial government established a state monopoly in telephony with the Electric Telegraph Act 1875. [1] By 1900 there were 7,150 subscribers to telephone services. [4] Telephony subscriptions grew greatly over the next century, it was estimated by 1965 that 35% of New Zealanders had a telephone. [5]
New Zealand's first payphones were installed in 1910, which was 21 years after the first ones in the United States. They were originally bright red. [6]
By the 1980s there was major telephony traffic congestion on the New Zealand Post Office network. [7] In Auckland, the central exchange was overloaded and "verging on collapse" [7] elsewhere in New Zealand users often experienced network overloading and crashes. [7] Some areas still had manual telephone exchanges; Queenstown, for example, wasn't upgraded to automatic service until 1988. [8] The New Zealand Post Office was highly inefficient, being hamstrung as a government department and required to apply to the Treasury for capital investment. [7] As the Post Office was a monopoly, it had no incentive to improve customer service. [7]
The monopoly over telecommunications came to an end in 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990. [9] Competition began in the early 1990s, greatly reducing prices. The first competitor to market was Clear Communications, a consortium of North American and New Zealand businesses. Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011, [10] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased. [9] A large-scale rollout of gigabit-capable fibre to the premises, branded as Ultra-Fast Broadband, began in 2009 with a target of being available to 87% of the population by 2022, which was achieved. [11] As of 2017 [update] , the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure. [12]
As of May 2022 [update] , there are approximately 2000 payphones in New Zealand, which few people use anymore due to the abundance of cell phones. [6] Some of them offer WiFi with a reception radius of 50 metres. Most calls made on these phones are 0800 numbers. [6] Telecom previously made phone cards, which had various designs such as New Zealand plants and birds. They were a fad for collectors; some cards would sell for up to $14,000. [29] Telecom phased these out completely in 1999, [30] which caused prices of phone cards price to drop significantly. Today, mint condition cards sell for $1. [29]
The government charges a $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy annually to fund improvements to communications infrastructure such as the Rural Broadband Initiative. It is payable by telecommunications firms with an operating revenue of over $10 million, in proportion to their qualified revenue. [32]
Like most countries and territories in Oceania, telecommunications in the Cook Islands is limited by its isolation and low population, with only one major television broadcasting station and six radio stations. However, most residents have a main line or mobile phone. Its telecommunications are mainly provided by Telecom Cook Islands, who is currently working with O3b Networks, Ltd. for faster Internet connection.
Telecommunications in France are highly developed. France is served by an extensive system of automatic telephone exchanges connected by modern networks of fiber-optic cable, coaxial cable, microwave radio relay, and a domestic satellite system; cellular telephone service is widely available, expanding rapidly, and includes roaming service to foreign countries.
Telecommunications in Ireland operate in a regulated competitive market that provides customers with a wide array of advanced digital services. This article explores Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure including: fixed and mobile networks, The voice, data and Internet services, cable television, developments in next-generation networks and broadcast networks for radio and television.
The telecommunications in Russia has undergone significant changes since the 1980s, radio was a major new technology in the 1920s, when the Communists had recently come to power. Soviet authorities realized that the "ham" operator was highly individualistic and encouraged private initiative – too much so for the totalitarian regime. Criminal penalties were imposed but the working solution was to avoid broadcasting over the air. Instead radio programs were transmitted by copper wire, using a hub and spoke system, to loudspeakers in approved listening stations, such as the "Red" corner of a factory. This resulted in thousands of companies licensed to offer communication services today. Due to the enormous size of the country Russia today, the country leads in the number of TV broadcast stations and repeaters. The foundation for liberalization of broadcasting was laid by the decree signed by the President of the USSR in 1990. Telecommunication is mainly regulated through the Federal Law "On Communications" and the Federal Law "On Mass Media"
Telecommunications infrastructure in South Africa provides modern and efficient service to urban areas, including cellular and internet services. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is the watchdog of the telecommunications in the country.
Telecommunications in the United Kingdom have evolved from the early days of the telegraph to modern broadband and mobile phone networks with Internet services.
In Venezuela the first law on telecommunications was approved in 1940. It identified the responsibility of the state in regard to telephone and other telecommunication systems, including radio and television services.
Portugal has a modern and flexible telecommunications market and a wide range of varied media organisations. The regulatory body overseeing communications is called ANACOM.
Telecommunications in Australia refers to communication in Australia through electronic means, using devices such as telephone, television, radio or computer, and services such as the telephony and broadband networks. Telecommunications have always been important in Australia given the "tyranny of distance" with a dispersed population. Governments have driven telecommunication development and have a key role in its regulation.
Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services. Its customers range from consumers to small - medium business, government agencies and large enterprise clients. It was formerly known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded to Spark on 8 August 2014. It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark's mobile network reaches 98% of New Zealand, with over 2.7 million mobile connections and 687,000 broadband connections
TPG is an Australian internet service provider that specialises in consumer and business internet services as well as mobile telephone services. As of August 2015, TPG is the second-largest internet service provider in Australia and is the largest mobile virtual network operator. As such, it has over 671,000 ADSL2+ subscribers, 358,000 landline subscribers and 360,000 mobile subscribers, and owns the second-largest ADSL2+ network in Australia, consisting of 391 ADSL2+ DSLAMs. It also operates in New Zealand.
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TelstraClear Limited was New Zealand's second-largest telecommunications company before being acquired by Vodafone New Zealand in October 2012, previous to which it was a subsidiary of Australian company Telstra.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.
The XT Network was a brand name for a UMTS and LTE mobile network run by Spark New Zealand. On 27 April 2009, Telecom announced that the new XT network would launch on 13 May 2009 at 6:30pm. After lengthy internal and corporate trials, a Vodafone New Zealand and Telecom dispute about network interference pushed the date to 29 May. The XT Network was launched to the public on 29 May 2009, at 7:30 am. The network was the successor to Telecom NZ's CDMA mobile network. With the shutdown of CDMA in 2012, XT is currently the company's sole mobile network.
2degrees is a New Zealand full service telecommunications provider. It's the third-largest wireless carrier in New Zealand, with 1.3 million subscribers as of July 2015. Since launching its mobile network, 2degrees broke up the New Zealand mobile duopoly halving the price of Prepay overnight. 2degrees offers services across mobile, broadband, business and power.
3G mobile telephony was relatively slow to be adopted globally. In some instances, 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G so mobile operators must build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies, especially so to achieve high data transmission rates. Other delays were due to the expenses of upgrading transmission hardware, especially for UMTS, whose deployment required the replacement of most broadcast towers. Due to these issues and difficulties with deployment, many carriers delayed acquisition of these updated capabilities.
Chorus is a provider of telecommunications infrastructure throughout New Zealand. It is listed on the NZX stock exchange and is in the NZX 50 Index. The company owns the majority of telephone lines and exchange equipment in New Zealand; and was responsible for building approximately 70% of the country's fibre-optic UFB network, receiving a government subsidy of $929 million to do so.