Telecommunications in New Zealand

Spark New Zealand, One NZ, and 2degrees provide most services, while a number of smaller mobile virtual network operators also exist.

[8] The New Zealand Post Office was highly inefficient, being hamstrung as a government department and required to apply to the Treasury for capital investment.

[7] The monopoly over telecommunications came to an end in 1987 when Telecom New Zealand was formed, initially as a state-owned enterprise and then privatised in 1990.

Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011,[10] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased.

[9] A large-scale rollout of gigabit-capable fibre to the premises, branded as Ultra-Fast Broadband, began in 2009 with a target of being available to 87% of the population by 2022, which was achieved.

[11] As of 2017[update], the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure.

[29] The government charges a $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy annually to fund improvements to communications infrastructure such as the Rural Broadband Initiative.