By Lloyd Burr
Three schools from rural parts of New Zealand have had the country’s fastest internet switched on this morning.
Henderson Valley School in West Auckland, Te Kura o Omaio on the Bay of Plenty’s East Cape and Granity School on the West Coast were the lucky schools to tap into the Government’s ultra-fast broadband scheme for the first time.
Henderson Valley School Principal Maree Stavert says the difference in speeds is incredible.
“It’s just amazing. Before we could only have a handful of kids online at one time but now they can all go on at once. We could never go on YouTube but now it’s instant and we are watching in high-definition,” Stavert says.
The school’s speed before being connected to the fibre-optic network was around 0.1 mb/s and today, after being connected, had an average speed of 84 mb/s. That is 840 times faster than what the school is used to.
A spokesperson for Chorus, one of the companies installing cables for the scheme, says the schools will be able to get speeds of up to 200 mb/s.
Education Minister Anne Tolley says today was the first step towards transforming schools and learning environments.
“With faster connections, these students will now be able to use the very latest learning online programmes. They’ll use high definition video conferencing to talk with other schools around the world and to access the best teaching and learning resources available anywhere in the world,” she says.
Stavert says the school lobbied the Government for faster internet because their speeds were so low.
“We spoke to MPs for ages and at first they didn’t understand but they have come through and given us fast internet,” she says.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce says “the opportunity for rural students to experience the same learning experience as urban students will dramatically reduce the digital divide”.
The three schools will not have to pay for the first six months of fast internet with their internet service providers picking up the bill.
3 News