The case for inefficient broadband: it slows down the spread of bad news to Alf’s constituents

If we went back to pigeon post maybe the bad news would not get home for a day or so.

Alf has some explaining to do at the Eketahuna Club when he gets home from dealing with affairs of state in the capital this weekend.

His mates had expected him to ensure the Government’s $1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband scheme would begin in their neck of the woods.

Alf did his best. But the scheme will begin elsewhere.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce yesterday said Northpower had won the Crown Fibre Holdings contract to install and operate a fibre network in Whangarei, and Ultra Fast Fibre Ltd won contracts for Hamilton, Tauranga, New Plymouth and Wanganui as well as Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Hawera and Tokoroa.

The work is scheduled for completion by 2015.

Telecom hangs up on 250 Kiwis

It’s not only the Government – the Labour one we dumped, not the splendid government we have now – that gets into social engineering. Or cultural engineering, if you prefer.

Today we learn Telecom’s call-centre workers in the Philippines “will be trained to talk like New Zealanders, learning slang words and mastering the Kiwi accent as part of a move to outsource 250 jobs.”

Outsourcing 250 jobs to the Philippines, of course, is a mealy-mouthed way of saying