A friend of mine, just moved upto kaukapakapa, to be more exact hes about 5 minutes out of the town.  However is on a broadband waiting list, good news is though his neightbours are line of sight 500m away and have given the ok to use their broadband.  So im heading up there to install wireless gear (point to point) link next weekend.

Apparently there are other people in the area (quite a few of them) all wanting broadband and cant get it because the local exchange is full.  So question is why can they upgrade the exchange?

The neighbours who offered to share their connection are very computer illiterate and dont actually use it very much at all, they are on the most basic plan aswell which we will be upgrading.  My mate needs it to run his business.  My question is:  Why cant service providers prioritize people on a waiting list who specifically need broadband to run their business, and can prove so?

I know some people may disagree with the following: but I think they should adopt a system where they possibly warn existing broadband users in the area with very low usage, that theres high demand for brandband and recommend they relinquish their connection if their usage continues to show very little over several consecutive months < 500mb in a month.  eg the little old lady up the road who only checks her email once a week and does very little online, should use dialup for this, and at the same time would allow someone else to have access to broadband who needs it and will actually use it.