Fibre, Attitude, Reap 'Inspiring' Rewards

A council decision to partner with a service provider and lay a backbone of fibre through the district has brought a blossoming of technology and some smart ‘outside the square’ thinking to Tararua.

Courtesy of the Palmerston North based Inspire Net boss James Watts and council’s manager strategy and district development Peter Wimsett, the ‘self help’ project has consolidated district health services, connected schools to world class super speed broadband and pioneered some farming ‘firsts’ in which tractors have been used to literally drag fibre to the back door.

“Putting a backbone in place had allowed for ‘creative last mile solutions’ including a fibre to farm partnership with farmers where they could lay their own pipe,” James Watts said.

But whilst fibre “is the dream to every New Zealand home” Mr Watts is also an advocate of wireless as “good filler technology”.

With a fibre backbone in place, Inspire Net could also do “interesting things” to connect users, such as community wireless, he said.

Because there was cheap backhaul, communities could do “some cool stuff.”
“Inspire’s basic model is to find a community champion who finds a minimum of 10 people who each pay $300 to connect,” and use these initial 10 to justify the business model to build a community wireless repeater. Google Earth is used to plan the deployment of the wireless saving hours of driving.

In one area Google Earth was used to find a suitable location to build a wireless tower to serve the first 10 customers. Using a combination of high-resolution photos, Google Earth and Google StreetView as a follow up to find new customers then resulted in over 37 connections. Inspire Net is currently in the process of building 16 more of these community partnered towers in the Tararua and Rangitikei districts.

Tararua’s district health services have also gained in efficiency by laying fibre into the Dannevirke Community Hospital, local GPs, and the Pahiatua Medical Centre.

All servers and records are centralised, lowering overheads and support costs and increasing service to end users.

The district council service provider partnership was a self-help example of “what happens when rural users find a partner and just get on with it,” Mr Watts believed.

“If the Government is not doing it for you, or you are sick of waiting – then do it yourself.”
For enquiries as to what is possible in your area, ring Inspire Net 0800 484363.