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. – This […]
WombatNET’s Alex Stewart expands on his 2nd Jun Herald NOW interview: infrastructure dependency stacking, spectrum constraints on local WISPs, and the TDL funding question.
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.
The Commerce Commission’s independent expert warned of LEO satellite monopoly risk in October 2025. MBIE internal documents from May 2024 described the same market as a monopoly while the formal OIA response said no analysis existed. Part 2 sets out what was known and when.
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 […]