Bill Bennett - New Zealand telecoms and technology news
Home of the Download Weekly, the New Zealand telecommunications newsletter – also covers personal productivity tools and local technology issues.
What is this site about and who is Bill Bennett?
Bill Bennett is a freelance New Zealand technology and business journalist. He started writing about technology in 1980 as staff writer on Practical Computing magazine. He left the UK in 1987 to work in Wellington on The Dominion as Computer Page editor. He spent a decade working in Sydney, Australia. There he was managing editor of two ...
Rural users switch as low cost Starlink plan take off - Bill Bennett
Starlink makes waves in rural New Zealand. Three weeks after it launched, (Download Weekly March 15) Starlink’s low-cost satellite broadband plan is making waves with frustrated rural telecoms users.Starlink describes its $79 plan as a ‘deprioritised service’. It means that, should the network be congested, customers on the plan will …
Deloitte report makes powerful case for more fibre
A report from Deloitte says New Zealand’s fibre infrastructure has already delivered huge economic benefits, but there is much more to come. In Unleashing the power of digital fibre infrastructure in New Zealand, the professional services firm says fibre contributed $31 billion between 2011 and 2023. It grew the economy by $8.8 billion in 2023.
Starlink’s growing pains
There are now 6,426 satellites. And reports from the US say the company is on track to earn revenues of US$6.6 billion this year. By any standards this is fast growth. But fast growth tends to bring problems. In the case of Starlink the number of satellites in orbit is growing fast, but not fast enough to eliminate pockets of congestion ...
Starlink fills gaps but doesn’t fix NZ rural coverage - Bill Bennett
Starlink’s business class dish costs a whopping NZ$4,374.80 up front. Plans start at NZ$426 a month for a terabyte of data, a six terabyte plan costs NZ$2507 a month. This is more than 20 times what a user would pay for a fibre connection with the same performance.
Measuring Broadband NZ report highlights rural-urban divide
MBNZ report highlights rural-urban divide, Tuanz presses for rural upgrade, Mateparae moves to Spark leadership squad. Autumn 2023's Measuring Broadband New Zealand report shows a continuing gulf between fixed wireless broadband performance in areas where fibre is available and in rural areas where there is less direct competition.
Understanding the cost of New Zealand broadband - Bill Bennett
Jun 17, 2024 · The press release says the average cost of a broadband connection in New Zealand is US$48.60 (for the rest of this story all prices are in US dollars). This compares with $2.40 for an average plan in Sudan. The most expensive is the Solomon Islands where a plan will set you back $457.84. New Zealand is fractionally cheaper than Australia where ...
NZ broadband faces competitive reset - Bill Bennett
Low Earth orbit satellites, 5G and a fibre speed bump are set to reboot New Zealand broadband competition.. It’s a decade since the first customers connected to Ultrafast broadband. At that time fibre looked the likely Kiwi broadband future.
Covid's technology Great Leap Forward - Bill Bennett
Early in 2020 much of the world went into lockdown. Companies sent workers home to work. Schools sent students home to study. As a response, there was a surge in technology adoption.