I was reading Tony Rule’s blog the other day – in particular his post called “Plumbing, Plasterers and Traffic Jams”. It addresses his concerns about the state of broadband in New Zealand.

One of the interesting things he discussed was the difference between Telecom’s “Broadband” network, and Telstra Clear’s Cable Broadband.

So on to the current problems….. getting disconnected, getting lag, getting slow download and upload rates. I experienced all of these when I switch back to ADSL last month. Two years ago I quite happily talked on Skype to a friend in Japan while at the same time be remote desktoping into their computer on a 256kb jetstart plan. Getting disconnected 8 times in a day (I had to reconnect using my router control panel) and experiencing massive lag and not being able to talk to someone less than 30km’s away on Skype was a bit of an eye opener when I recently had Jetstream turned back on. This is in a house 10 doors up the road from where I used to live, so all the variables had stayed constant. What had changed?

I experienced this problem just the other day – I was testing the quality of Skype between our offices in Karori, and someone in Johnsonville (a distance of perhaps 10km?). The quality was sporadically terrible and at at times inaudible. The person at the other end had Telecom ADSL “Broadband” internet.

Compare that to communicating with our Prague office via our Telstra Clear Cable (a dedicated network of cables that has little if not nothing to do with Telecom), we are able to have hours of uninterrupted, video conferencing in crystal clear quality. With no problems at all.

The difference between the two networks is immediately obvious to anyone working in the technology industry – many of the things you normally can do on the Telstra Clear network you cannot do on the Telecom network. I have worked with Wellingtonians who have told me our servers in Prague must be out of service because they cannot connect to them. The first question I ask is “Do you use Telecom (or Brand X) ADSL for your internet?” – this is the root of 99% of all problems.

To bring this problem into perspective for small businesses competing in a global market from NZ, let’s use the analogy of the telephone.

Imagine if you operated a small business out of Wellington, New Zealand and:

-You had major clients in the US who you could only call 30 minutes of the day – otherwise the phone system might overload and you wouldn’t be able to hear them properly.

-You

Business NZ issued a press release today regarding a need to boost exports from NZ.

Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly’s quote rings true – he says

New Zealand’s economy is too small to generate rapid growth without strong export performance.

Our challenge is to grow exports as a proportion of GDP. It’s the only way to grow the economy and improve living standards.

Our population makes up a tiny proportion of worldwide consumers and clients, so exporting is key to creating a viable long term growth plan for businesses.

We have a number of overseas clients, many of which have been as a result of collaboration with our Prague office. Working with these businesses gives one a strong sense that those not exporting are only getting the benefit of the tip of the iceberg.