The Commerce Commission has today released the last of three issues papers relating to the uptake of high speed broadband ahead of The Future with High Speed Broadband: Opportunities for New Zealand conference to be held on 20 and 21 February 2012 in Auckland.

This paper looks at the willingness of consumers and businesses to pay for high speed broadband, and potential content and applications.

“The purpose of these issues papers is to inform readers of various factors which may impede the uptake of high speed broadband services, and which will be relevant to the presentations and panel discussions at the conference,” said Dr Ross Patterson, Telecommunications Commissioner.

Key findings in the paper include:

• The Commission surveyed the level of interest in high speed broadband services from consumers, and small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). Close to 50% of consumers and SMEs showed some level of interest in at least one of the services and applications mentioned to them in the survey. Consumers were most interested in high definition movies and video on demand, while SMEs were most interested in online sales and marketing applications. 
• Video content is likely to be delivered over high speed broadband networks, enabling new players to enter the market and current market participants to deliver new products. The extent of these changes will depend on companies’ ability to access premium video content.
• Most SMEs consider themselves to be well served by current broadband services. The development of cloud-based services could increase SMEs’ demand for faster broadband connectivity.
• While the survey findings show that most consumers were not willing to pay more than an additional $10 per month, retail service providers think that consumers may be willing to pay a greater amount for services delivered over a high speed broadband network.

“Ultimately, consumer willingness to pay a greater amount for high speed broadband services will depend on the attractiveness of content and applications which are offered”, said Dr Patterson.

Today’s paper follows a technical issues paper published on 19 December 2011, and an issues paper looking at e-health and e-education published on 24 January 2012.

The Commission encourages interested parties to comment on the issues paper either directly to the Commission by emailing telco@comcom.govt.nz, or via social media sites relating to the demand-side study: LinkedIn, Twitter (our twitter handle is @FutureBroadband or you can use the hashtag #FutureBB) and Facebook.

You can view a copy of the discussion papers on the Commission’s website at: www.comcom.govt.nz/high-speed-broadband-services-demand-side-study

Background

The Commission is carrying out a high speed broadband services demand-side study to identify and inform on any factors that may impede the uptake of high speed broadband services in New Zealand. A copy of the terms of reference for the study can be found at: www.comcom.govt.nz/high-speed-broadband-services-demand-side-study

The study is conducted under Section 9A of the Telecommunications Act 2001, which empowers the Commission to conduct inquiries, reviews and studies into any matter relating to the telecommunications industry for the long-term benefit of end-users of telecommunications services within New Zealand.

The Future with High Speed Broadband: Opportunities for New Zealand conference will be held on 20 and 21 February 2012 in Auckland. Attendance is free and you can register at: www.futurebroadband.co.nz

The timeline for the high speed broadband services demand-side study is below.

Date Activity
19 Dec 2011 Publication of Technical Issues Paper
24 Jan 2012 Publication of e-Learning/e-Health Paper
7 Feb 2012 Publication of Willingness to Pay/Content Paper
20-21 Feb 2012 The Future with High Speed Broadband: Opportunities for New Zealand Conference
9 April 2012 Publication of the study draft report
4 May 2012 Due date for submissions on the Draft Report
28 May 2012 Publication of the study final report