Tararua Fibre Project Placed in Top Technology Innovations of 2009

An award for a three way fibre optic initiative in Tararua is gaining more national recognition for the district and the council.

Tararua’s inter-town fibre project was recently awarded second place behind North Shore City in the local government national Innovation Awards.

The prestigious ALGIM Award is for the most innovative ground-breaking IT project in New Zealand.
It attracted 11 applicants and 8 finalists with North Shore City winning with an on-line building consent system.

Tararua’s success follows on from being a finalist for the Telecommunication Innovations Awards in October when it again managed second place.

The project is a partnership between Inspire Net, FX Networks and Tararua District Council.
There was a “lot of buzz” around New Zealand for Tararua and it was great to be recognised, manager Strategy and District Development Peter Wimsett said.

Three unrelated speakers at the recent rural broadband symposium talked about Tararua, he said.
But while being a finalist among bigger councils in New Zealand was an interesting experience and there was a “Wow” factor for the Tararua project, Mr Wimsett believed it was not the award that counted.

“This is about people connecting to improve what they do. For some this may be just getting their emails, or accessing web sites for research and family stuff, but as we get more confident, on-line business opportunities and software is expected to create real wealth.”

Inspire Net last month reached a milestone by signing up 100 rural wireless customers, he said.