More rural homes can say goodbye to dial-up internet following today’s launch of the first of 154 new broadband wireless towers, says Minister for Communications and Information Technology Amy Adams.

Ms Adams was on site at Eureka, near Hamilton, to see the tower launched as part of the Government’s Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI).

“The new tower in Eureka represents the first of many that will give rural New Zealand homes and businesses better access to fast broadband – a necessity in today’s world,” says Ms Adams.

The tower was built by Vodafone as part of its contract with the Government to allow more rural communities nationwide to have faster wireless broadband. It represents the first step in a major government initiative to get rural communities connected.

“The RBI is being implemented to address the specific broadband infrastructure needs of rural New Zealand. Over the next five years, it will bring significantly expanded fibre and mobile infrastructure to schools, businesses and homes.

“As part of its RBI contract, Vodafone is required to build broadband wireless towers that are able to be used by other cellular and wireless broadband operators. This ensures there is true competition in the rural wireless telecommunications market.”

To deliver the objectives of the RBI, the Government has contracted Vodafone to deliver fixed wireless broadband to 83 percent of rural New Zealand households and businesses by 2016.

This will bring the total of all New Zealand households with peak speeds of at least 5Mbps to 98.1 percent.