The Dominion Post had a front page story yesterday about an 80-year-old pensioner required to pay for fast broadband in her new social housing. Her new apartment happens to be in my same suburb. I can see the new apartments from my window as I type.
She didn’t have much use for this fast broadband, which cost an extra $20 a month, because she is legally blind. She cannot have a landline-only option because of the way her apartment is wired and the way in which fast broadband works.
The 27 flats have been fitted with fibre-optic cabling, and residents, many of whom are pensioners or have disabilities, cannot opt for a landline-only service.
National building standards require new apartments to be wired with fast broadband. A classic example of the inability of central planning to deal with the diversity of preferences and incomes.
In this case, the victim of central planning it is an old age pensioners obviously in poor circumstances as well as legally blind who is out of pocket. She is one of a number of old age pensioners who are similarly out-of-pocket when they living on a strictly limited budget.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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