RNZ Midday Rural News on Starlink and rural broadband. Background on the structural risk, the policy context, and what’s at stake for rural New Zealand.
Spectrum allocated asymmetrically. Direct-to-Cell consolidation across mobile carriers. A national security gap at GCSB and NZDF. Ministerial advice withheld under s9(2)(f)(iv). Part 3 sets out the structural decisions that closed off the rural market.
Between October 2025 and March 2026, 28 OIA requests went to 18 government agencies asking what analysis had been done on rural broadband monopoly risk. Sixteen of twenty-one core questions returned “information does not exist.” Part 1 documents the analytical vacuum.
In 2019, I visited a rural community that had been begging for better access to connectivity for years. The big telcos had looked at the area, done the math on how many customers they could sign up, and walked away. The community was told they’d need to raise a few hundred thousand dollars themselves before […]