Vector Fibre Debate: Fibre, farming and Star Trek

Long-time Northpower chairman and deer farmer Warren Moyes is working hard to ensure fellow farmers are given a similar chance to urban dwellers in accessing the soon-to-be-introduced ultra-fast fibre broadband.

And he believes the New Zealand Regional Fibre Group, of which Northpower is a founding member, can partner effectively with the Government to ensure urban and rural New Zealand are increasingly put on equal footing with critical community infrastructure like broadband… Vector's Steve McMillan Reports

Warren Moyes likes the idea of a Star Trek style headline.

That’s thanks to Communications Minister Steven Joyce.

You see, Moyes was part of a Northpower technology show and tell demonstrating the virtues of ultra-fast fibre broadband (UFB) to the Minister some time back.

While showcasing Northpower’s room of wizardry, it was suggested a Star Trek movie be downloaded to illustrate the network speed many Whangarei business and schools are benefitting from thanks to Northpower’s fibre optic broadband network.

Moyes suspects Mr Joyce thought the process might take a while so turned away to chat to staff.

“We tapped him on the shoulder 20-odd seconds later to tell him the download was complete. I think he was reasonably impressed,” explains the affable deer farmer, who just happens to have been chairman of Northpower for 18 years now.

While the NZRFG is behind the Government’s commitment to extend the reach of ‘fast’ broadband to rural areas, Moyes says greater focus on community-wide broadband connectivity must be pursued.

However, he believes it is possible to deliver ultra-fast broadband to rural users as well as urban at speeds higher than the Government is suggesting.

The NZRFG has stated that fibre based connectivity speeds of 100Mbit/s are possible in rural communities, depending on Government contribution levels.

Moyes says the vote of confidence in the Government’s expanded rural broadband policy won’t stop members of the 19-strong group pushing on with their own fibre network builds into rural New Zealand.

“We are all very open to working with other broadband service providers and rural communities to develop the most appropriate fast broadband solution for those areas and Northpower is a good example of that in how we have opened up our network this year.”

Although Northpower continues to extend its network, Moyes doesn’t discount the need for alternative funding models maybe beyond the current level of Government grants to effectively deliver ultra-fast broadband to rural New Zealand.

“We are laying the groundwork infrastructure for fibre to the farm connectivity and we have already constructed fibre in Dargaville and that is a town not included in the Government’s preferred 33 urban candidate areas.

“We’re also pushing on with our first residential fibre to the door build in Whangarei and other members of the group like Vector, Unison and Electricity Ashburton are being very pro-active with fibre activity also.”

Becoming something of a rural voice for cutting edge communication technology is a far cry from where Moyes started out at Northpower many years ago.

But it appears he wants to strike gold for rural New Zealand having realised what a semi-decent internet connection means for him – and having experienced how superior that would be with fibre.

Moyes says he’d be required at Northpower’s Whangarei office two days a week if he couldn’t keep in touch via email. And being off-farm doesn’t help run a deer operation across two properties kilometres apart.

With fibre to the farm gate, he’d be able to engage in key meetings via video conferencing of a far higher quality than is available to many city dwellers yet to experience the consistency, security and speed of fibre. In fact, it’d be like watching high definition TV because fibre transmits at the speed of light.

Fibre makes the speed of today’s fastest copper broadband look like dial up, muses Moyes.

So just how has the man become an advocate of technological infrastructure like fibre?

“I guess when you live in a rural area you often don’t have access to the types of services of townsfolk and I know how frustrating that can be. So having experienced how quick fibre is, I can see how beneficial it could be to farmers.

“It would save a huge amount of time and they could actually research products online which most of them can’t do because of dial-up connections. They can’t afford to spend hours at a time in front of a computer when there is work today on the farm. The same applies to other rural-based businesses too.”

Ironically, it was Moyes who ditched a city lifestyle in favour of farming a couple of decades back.

In more recent times he has overseen Northpower’s move to fibre. The company is now 100km into a fibre world, with technological reach north to south through Whangarei and the seeds of fibre ready to be sown in the townships of Ruakaka, Dargaville and beyond.

Over time, the tentacles will be connected and the reach further extended throughout the north. Opening the Northpower network to multiple providers is giving Northland fibre customers the best choice of services they’ve ever had.

Moyes is all about giving people opportunities, yet ironically, back in the early 1990s his life quite the technological contrast, even devoid of a cell phone.

“I had always wanted to go farming and as a youngster my folks suggested I might never have the money for it, but when we moved from Glen Eden to Titirangi as a child it showed me that you can get ahead and I started to believe anything was possible.”

Along the way, Moyes completed degrees here and abroad, represented New Zealand at sailing and New Zealand Universities at rugby, imported Italian women’s fashion shoes, sold oil for Shell and dabbled in lifestyle farming in West Auckland.

That was amidst importing sheepskins from Iceland to the USA because he couldn’t source them in New Zealand, becoming a Mount Albert city councillor and owning a owning an old family garage and marine engineering firm in partnership with his brother …… and plying his trade as a teacher at some of Auckland’s well known high schools - Kelston and Mount Albert Grammar.

It was, he says, a fascinating and stimulating journey, if a little challenging and nerve-wracking at times.

He finally bought a chunk or two of farmland in the North in the late 1980s but soon after, decided he needed more of a challenge - one that did not interfere with his golf outings.

“I told Northpower that at my initial interview and they did not seem to mind.”

Soon after, Moyes was on the board juggling the adjustment from teacher, townie and city-slicker businessman, to deer farmer and power company board member.

That was in 1991 and the bloke fully intends to march on well past his 21st Northpower birthday. Given he played rugby until 50, that’s highly believable.

“I reckon I have a few good years in front of me. I really want to see this fibre thing roll out. Copper really is a stranded asset and cabinetisation is not the answer. It is so bad for the rural community lagging behind everyone else.”

So long as his neighbour and fellow deer farmer Richard Broughton can keep an eye on his 600-odd deer while he’s jostling in the boardroom, there’s every chance that’ll happen.

Which brings Moyes back to the thrust of his current favourite conversation – ultra-fast fibre broadband.

Not only does he explain the virtues of the technology with the grace of one of his red deer, he is quick to point out the need for people not to be left behind by being denied infrastructure that he believes will become the fabric of our society as the 21st century rolls on.

Perhaps this reveals why Moyes and the Northpower crew were quick to jump on board with the NZRFG at the outset – a year ago. The group has since pitched its wares to the Government in the hope of a being a key cog in what it believes should be a nationally co-ordinated, but regionally based, fibre roll-out.

Now it is down to conversations in months to come to see just who the Government chooses to take fibre to New Zealanders.

Moyes, a one-time Deer Farmers Association board member says the group effectively exists to provide the Government with an option outside of Telecom and the nation’s aging copper infrastructure. To help equip our communities with a far higher standard of communication capabilities via fibre, which, he points out, is where the rest of the world is fast heading.

Explains Moyes: “Companies like Northpower and all of the other NZRFG members are infrastructure specialists. We’ve been taking care of infrastructure throughout rural New Zealand since the day power was rolled out earlier last century, so attaching fibre to the likes of our pole networks is a natural extension of what we do. We can do it very quickly and we want to take fibre to the door wherever possible.

“We all know our communities very well, are aware of the challenges, have existing relationships and can make it work and work well.”

Northpower is using US techniques for attaching fibre to poles and Moyes suggests no Kiwi electricity company is slicker at the practice.

“What we have to remember is that fibre is not a telcommunications issue. It is about connecting New Zealanders in every aspect of society with each other - and by default with the rest of the world – via an instant communication network. That’s how fast fibre is and the beauty of it is that there is no interference or dulling of signal strength either, which is what hampers copper.

“Having NZRFG members creating fibre networks around the regions – and remember, 10 of them already are - means you and I will no longer be bound by one or two providers of telephone or internet services. For example, any provider can use fibre optic networks so that means we can have internet from one company, telephone from another, TV from another and on it goes.

“The Government is proposing broadband speeds of 100Mbit/s for urban New Zealand and rural schools but only 5-10Mbit/s for most rural landowners which would mean the rural sector is left behind somewhat.

“Now I realise there are physical and economic practicalities around this but it makes no sense for a panel beater on the city fringe to have ultra-fast fibre broadband, while farmers 30 minutes away running multi-million dollar businesses, have little more than dial-up when they are the one who need all the efficiencies they can get.

“If ultra-fast broadband is to go to rural schools and townships, let us take it to the surrounding rural communities.

“And that is what the NZRFG is saying to the Government. The rural broadband initiative is a great start but my thinking is let us take it a step further and, where possible, extend that reach.”

Moyes’ approach is about as common sense and down on the farm as you’d find but with a penchant for looking out for others. Yet he’s street smart enough and proven at footing it amidst big business. As a board member of Tongan SOE, Tonga Power, he sits alongside Wellingtonian David Wright - the first non-Tongan’s to hold such positions.

He knows Northpower can deliver fibre to a broad chunk of its urban and rural community and will do so relatively quickly given access to some of the Government’s $1.5 billion UFB fund and perhaps a slice of the $300 million rural broadband fund.

The keen horse rider plans to make sure farmers are not left behind because, he says, it becomes a social equivalence issue, which is why he’s adamant farmers deserve fibre access just as soon as is practical.

“Farmers have complex needs and they and country kids need access to the technology they are going to be experiencing at these fibre connected schools.

“The strengths of towns comes from the farmers. When the farmer spends, the shop and service owners do well.

“The rest of the world is fast heading the fibre direction and if we are to keep primary product exports as our leading export earner at $20 billion a year (of total export earnings of $50 billion), then we need to equip the primary sector with the tools to create efficiencies that will lift productivity. The call for fibre is well warranted.”

With feed-out time beckoning, that’s about it from a bloke who was quite possibly New Zealand’s first US based professional rugby player - thanks to a contract that took him to California’s Berkeley University back in the early 60’s.

And to think, he made his passage as a kitchen hand aboard a German freighter.

Seems the guy is used to pioneering new opportunities.

About The Vector Fibre Debate

The Government plans to give New Zealand a complete fibre to the door ultra-fast broadband network. Vector thinks that’s a great idea and is hoping to help them do it and Scoop.co.nz also thinks its something well worth discussing. To have your say in The Vector Fibre Debate see… http://www.fibretothedoor.co.nz/

ENDS

© Scoop Media