northland chamber

While they are still talking about it – private enterprise has gone out and done it

The Northland Chamber of Commerce is a voluntary association of companies and individuals engaged in business activities in the Northland region.

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  It is dedicated to the development of international, national and regional trade through
  Freedom of enterprise for those who by their individual and corporate talents contribute real economic, social and cultural wealth to the community.


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  The development of a market economy in which there is minimal interference from central and local government.
  


• The strengthening of Northlands place as a pre-eminent commercial, industrial and communications centre.


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  Assisting the development of the region in creating a desirable commercial and industrial environment for its citizens.

The ‘market economy’ point above manages to attract a lot of flak from time to time from various individuals and organisations who feel that the economy should be closed or controlled by Government.

Recently in Northland we have seen a private partnership come together to solve a problem which is bothering provincial New Zealand. That is the Broadband issue. Broadband and data services are slow and cumbersome due to a monopoly provider controlling the lines over the past decade or so and the lack of a need to invest in basic infrastructure.

Northpower and Telstra Clear have come together to deliver voice and high speed broadband services over Northpower fibre optic core network. This means that 900 businesses, schools and health sites in Whangarei will now have a choice of using a high speed network for the delivery of Data. The expected roll out of this is due before Christmas 2008.

The interesting point about this is that Politicians and Government have been talking about delivering high speed data services for some time now.

Current central Government includes huge spending in project probe a few years ago along with resource over the past 4 or 5 years in the Governments Digital Strategy.
The National party is campaigning on ultra fast broadband infrastructure as being central to the investment in infrastructure if elected.

Regional Council have been talking about broadband for a while now and have only recently announced an MOU with a private provider to scope and run a feasibility study on a project which will see a broadband infrastructure rolled out across the Northland Region.

Central Government has also been involved over the past few years in forcing Telecom the monopoly provider to open up access to basic infrastructure to allow other companies to compete.

Interestingly, in March this year, the NZ Institute criticized NZ’s broadband performance and aspirations saying that “ Progress in improvement is too slow, Telecom was the only real player in the roll out of fibre industry and that to stall on infrastructure improvement meant that options for future improvements are becoming restricted”. The NZ institute went on to advocate that the Government move rapidly to invest in the rapid roll out of Fibre to enable fast Broadband.

Of course we in Northland can now see that a ‘market economy’ decision to invest in a region beats Government initiatives any day regardless of what politicians are promising and think tanks are recommending.

There are a couple of good points about the Northpower / Telstra partnership. Firstly Whangarei will now have Data speed and services equaling those of Cities like Christchurch and Wellington. This then gives Whangarei yet another advantage over other regional cities as a preferred place to work and do business.

Secondly, in one swoop Telstra /Northpower are now able to enter the basic communications industry. In other words you now have choice in which provider you use for your telephone connection. As Telstra’s Dr. Alan Freeth said at the launch of this initiative, look out for surprisingly good deals from communications companies competing in a ‘Market Economy’ for your communications spend.

The Northland Chamber says ‘Thank goodness for Competition’.

The Northland Chamber of Commerce is the networking, education, advocacy and marketing group for Northland business, and is part of a nationwide network of 30 and a world-wide movement of 21,000 chambers. Subscription to the free fortnightly chamber e-news can be arranged on info@northchamber.co.nz. Enquiries to 09-4384771 or www.northchamber.co.nz, www.kaiparachamber.co.nz and www.farnorthchamber.co.nz

You can have a say on this by going to the Northland Chamber of Commerce Feedback website on www.northchamber.blogspot.com