Telecommunications in New Zealand

The first telegraph opened in New Zealand between the port of Lyttelton and Christchurch on 16 June 1862.[1] The line was constructed along the Lyttelton - Christchurch railway line.[1] The Vogel Era from 1870 saw a major expansion of the telegraph network, including an inter-island cable.[1] Telegraph lines increased from 699 miles (1,125 km) in 1866 to 3,170 miles (5,100 km) in 1876.[2] The first overseas telegraph cable between Australia and New Zealand began operation on 21 February 1876.[1]

The Electric Telegraph Department formed to manage the growing telegraph network was merged with Post Office Department to form the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department in 1881.[3]

Following early experiments with telephones on telegraph lines, the colonial government established a state monopoly in telephony with the Electric Telegraph Act 1875.[1] By 1900 there were 7,150 subscribers to telephone services.[4] Telephony subscriptions grew greatly over the next century, it was estimated by 1965 that 35% of New Zealanders had a telephone.[5]

By the 1980s there was major telephony traffic congestion on the New Zealand Post Office network.[6] In Auckland, the central exchange was overloaded and "verging on collapse"[6] elsewhere in New Zealand users often experienced network overloading and crashes.[6] Some areas still had manual telephone exchanges; Queenstown, for example, wasn't upgraded to automatic service until 1988.[7] The New Zealand Post Office was highly inefficient, being hamstrung as a government department and required to apply to the Treasury for capital investment.[6] As the Post Office was a monopoly, it had no incentive to improve customer service.[6]

The monopoly over telecommunications came to an end in 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990.[8] Competition began in the early 1990s, greatly reducing prices. The first competitor to market was Clear Communications, a consortium of North American and New Zealand businesses. Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011,[9] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased.[8] A large-scale rollout of gigabit-capable fibre to the premises, branded as Ultra-Fast Broadband, began in 2009 with a target of being available to 87% of the population by 2022.[10] As of 2017, the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure.[11]

• Country calling code: 64
  • The same code is also used to reach Scott Base in Antarctica and the United States base McMurdo Station nearby.

• Radio broadcast stations: AM 124, FM 290, shortwave 4 (1998), 4 on Freeview digital satellite.
  • See also: List of radio stations in New Zealand
• Radios: 3.75 million (1997)

• Television broadcast stations: 41 (plus 52 medium-power repeaters and over 650 low-power repeaters) (1997)
  • These transmit 4 nationwide free-to-air networks and a few regional or local single transmitter stations. Analogue was phased out between September 2012 and December 2013
  • Digital Satellite pay TV is also available and carries most terrestrial networks.
  • Freeview digital free satellite with a dozen SD channels, with SD feeds of the terrestrial HD freeview channels.
  • Freeview, free-to-air digital terrestrial HD and SD content.
  • Cable TV is available in some urban areas with Vodafone's broadband services.
  • See also: List of New Zealand television channels
• Televisions: 1.926 million (1997)

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 36 (2000)
• Internet users: 2.11 million (2002)
• Fixed internet connections: 1.24 million (2013)
• Country code (Top level domain): .nz

The government charges a $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy annually to fund improvements to communications infrastructure such as the Rural Broadband Initiative. It is payable by telecommunications firms with an operating revenue of over $10 million, in proportion to their qualified revenue.[24]

• Economy of New Zealand