31 March 2009 saw the New Zealand government call for submissions on a proposal to build an FTTH network in New Zealand reaching 75% of the population (the top 25 cities) and taking at least six years to roll out. The NZ government will invest up to NZ$1.5 billion in the network, and seek additional private sector investment to create a national market in dark fibre and wholesale broadband access. The funding will be invested in a government-owned enterprise, which will jointly invest with the private sector in local fibre companies (LFCs) in the 25 cities. Singapore announced a StarHub-led consortium as the winner of its OpCo tender for the national FTTH switching infrastructure. This was the culmination of a tender process launched by the Singapore government back in 2006. The passive fibre infrastructure will be built by a SingTel-led consortium. Completion is expected by 2013. In Australia, instead of announcing a winner of its FTTN tender today, the government there announced a significant policy change. It rejected all of the bids, and announced that it would instead pursue a wholesale-only FTTH network over a significantly longer 7 – 8 year timeframe. The government will commit its promised $4.7 billion investment, and will seek additional private investment directly and through the issue of infrastructure bonds. Says David Kennedy, research director at Ovum, “Out of these three countries, a basic policy model seems to be emerging: the preference for FTTH technology has become clear in all three countries, with a recognition that this will be focused on urban populations. All three countries want a ‘wholesale-only’ operator for the fibre access network. In both New Zealand and Singapore, the importance of access to dark fibre is also clear. This is consistent with experience in other Asian markets such as Japan.” “The level of government investment is a consequence of the problematic business case for investment in national FTTH networks. All that is happening is that taxpayers are bearing these risks instead of private investors. A great deal is riding on the capacity of the industry to create the innovative services and new revenues needed to justify these large-scale investments. Voice and broadband access clearly won’t do it, and video alone will struggle to make up the difference.” “Of course, both the Australia and New Zealand governments have left themselves considerable latitude in the fine print. Politically, this is wise. It is one thing to roll out FTTH in the urban environment of Singapore; it will be quite another to achieve this feat in the sprawling cities of Australia and New Zealand.”