Telecommunications in New Zealand

The historic telegraph office in Lyttelton from which the first telegraph transmission in New Zealand was made

The first telegraph opened in New Zealand between the port of Lyttelton and Christchurch on 16 June 1862.[1] The line was constructed along the Lyttelton - Christchurch railway line.[1] The Vogel Era from 1870 saw a major expansion of the telegraph network, including an inter-island cable.[1] Telegraph lines increased from 699 miles (1,125 km) in 1866 to 3,170 miles (5,100 km) in 1876.[2] The first overseas telegraph cable between Australia and New Zealand began operation on 21 February 1876.[1]

The Electric Telegraph Department formed to manage the growing telegraph network was merged with Post Office Department to form the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department in 1881.[3]

Following early experiments with telephones on telegraph lines, the colonial government established a state monopoly in telephony with the Electric Telegraph Act 1875.[1] By 1900 there were 7,150 subscribers to telephone services.[4] Telephony subscriptions grew greatly over the next century, it was estimated by 1965 that 35% of New Zealanders had a telephone.[5]

By the 1980s there was major telephony traffic congestion on the New Zealand Post Office network.[6] In Auckland, the central exchange was overloaded and "verging on collapse"[6] elsewhere in New Zealand users often experienced network overloading and crashes.[6] Some areas still had manual telephone exchanges; Queenstown, for example, wasn't upgraded to automatic service until 1988.[7] The New Zealand Post Office was highly inefficient, being hamstrung as a government department and required to apply to the Treasury for capital investment.[6] As the Post Office was a monopoly, it had no incentive to improve customer service.[6]

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.[8] Competition began in the early 1990s, greatly reducing prices. The first competitor to market was Clear Communications, a consortium of North American and New Zealand businesses. Chorus, which was split from Telecom (now Spark) in 2011,[9] still owns the majority of the telecommunications infrastructure, but competition from other providers has increased.[8] 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.[10] As of 2017, the United Nations International Telecommunication Union ranks New Zealand 13th in the development of information and communications infrastructure.[11]

Telephone booths in Dunedin

• Country calling code: 64
  • The same code is also used to reach Scott Base in Antarctica and the United States base McMurdo Station nearby.

• Radio broadcast stations: AM 124, FM 290, shortwave 4 (1998), 4 on Freeview digital satellite.
  • See also: List of radio stations in New Zealand
• Radios: 3.75 million (1997)

• Television broadcast stations: 41 (plus 52 medium-power repeaters and over 650 low-power repeaters) (1997)
  • These transmit 4 nationwide free-to-air networks and a few regional or local single transmitter stations. Analogue was phased out between September 2012 and December 2013
  • Digital Satellite pay TV is also available and carries most terrestrial networks.
  • Freeview digital free satellite with a dozen SD channels, with SD feeds of the terrestrial HD freeview channels.
  • Freeview, free-to-air digital terrestrial HD and SD content.
  • See also: List of New Zealand television channels
• Televisions: 1.926 million (1997)

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 36 (2000)
• Internet users: 4.55 million (2021)[27]
• Fixed internet connections: 1.24 million (2013)
• Country code (Top level domain): .nz

The government charges a $50 million Telecommunications Development Levy annually to fund improvements to communications infrastructure such as the Rural Broadband Initiative. It is payable by telecommunications firms with an operating revenue of over $10 million, in proportion to their qualified revenue.[28]

• Economy of New Zealand