“With this decision, rural customers will see rebadged Vodafone products only – and Vodafone will dictate the price,” he said. “Statements regarding magnanimous co-location offers are simply more of the status quo.”
He said Vodafone's part of the proposal, involving extending its 3G network in rural areas, was based on old technology which is already being superseded by 4G. Vodafone NZ and Telecom NZ currently do not hold 4G spectrum.
Hunt said that due to the lack of competition and the technological limitations of 3G meant that “it is hard to see this duopoly doing anything other than rolling out the minimum requirement of 5 Mbps over six years.”
This compares poorly to the concurrent Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) project to bring 100Mbps fiber to 75% of New Zealand, he said, and ensures the rural-urban divide will only deepen.