RNZ National’s Nine to Noon aired a segment on 22 June 2026 about rural broadband, Starlink, and local providers now at risk of closure. It featured Mark Hooper, telecommunications spokesperson for Federated Farmers, alongside myself.

Audio © Kathryn Ryan, Alex Stewart, Mark Hooper, RNZ National, Nine to Noon, 22 June 2026. Source: rnz.co.nz.

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This is now the latest in a month of coverage across RNZ, Herald NOW and BusinessDesk.

For years, local and regional broadband networks were the clear answer in places where national rollouts skipped. When Starlink arrived, it filled the gaps we were yet to reach, and for a while, that looked like the whole story. It is not. Starlink is no longer just covering the edges. It is now a direct competitor for the same customers we exist to serve, and on the current trajectory, it is a threat to whether our networks survive at all. That matters beyond any one business, because when the local layer disappears, the infrastructure goes with it, and that infrastructure is what many of these communities depend on as their last remaining alternative to satellite.

The part that gets misread most often is the technology. Rural operators are not falling behind. We are being unwillingly held back. The equipment that would let a local network match Starlink on speed and beat it on lag already exists and is in everyday use overseas. It operates in the 6 GHz band, with a software layer called Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) that allows the outdoor radios we would use to share the band without interfering with existing users. The United States and Canada switched this on years ago. New Zealand has not, so we remain confined to the same congested slice of spectrum as your home Wi-Fi, competing with every router in the district.

The fix is not theoretical and not expensive. An AFC system was even offered to the regulator at essentially no cost to the Crown for implementation. The hold-up is not money, and it is not technology. It is a decision that has not been made. Until then, the equipment sits on the shelf, the band remains unused for its intended purpose, and rural customers pay for the wait.

On the question of whether anyone in government has assessed this risk, the public record is now reasonably clear. Across the core agencies that use Starlink or hold some oversight of it, Official Information Act responses show no analysis of this dependency has been carried out. In a number of cases the responses were refusals on the basis that the information does not exist (section 18(e) of the Act). That is a different, and in some ways sharper, finding than information being withheld. It is not that the work was done and kept back. In most cases it has not been done at all. The exception sits with the Minister, who holds advice on this question that does exist and has not been released (withheld under section 9(2)(f)(iv)).

None of this is a fringe view. The Commerce Commission’s own Telecommunications Commissioner recently, at an industry symposium, identified the monopoly risk and the prospect of an offshore network being switched off as real concerns. The Commission’s independent expert, Richard Feasey, found a material risk that Starlink wins the rural market outright and becomes very difficult to regulate, and said the government needed to act as a matter of urgency. Against that backdrop, the Commission’s public posture has been to wait until there is clear evidence of competition or consumer harm. The trouble with waiting for the harm is that by the time it shows up, the local providers are already gone.

What is new this time is that the concern is no longer coming only from an operator with an obvious interest. Federated Farmers has now put its name to the issue. Mark Hooper’s point on air was a simple one. Money spent with a local network stays and circulates in the rural community. Money spent with an offshore provider leaves the country. Add the impending copper withdrawal and the recently completed 3G shutdown to that, and rural New Zealand’s options are narrowing from several directions at once. For most farmers, this is all a tough swallow.

So where does this leave things. The case for acting has been made on the record by me, the regulator, an independent expert, and now by the farming sector, which presently stands to lose the most if things go downhill. The levers that would help, chiefly a spectrum decision, exist and are close at hand. An approach I made to the Prime Minister’s office, asking that this be treated as a national risk and resilience question rather than solely a day-to-day telecommunications matter, received a generic reply, was forwarded back to the Communications Minister, and has not progressed further.

The ask has not changed and it is not complicated. The chance, not the cheque. Not a handout, not shutting Starlink out, just a fair shot at competing and an honest look at what happens if the thing everyone has piled onto ever fails. The cheapest time to keep that option open is while it is still there.

The full investigation is in the Rural Blind Spot series below.