Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand and Growers, who were calling the berries "melonettes", because the local name for the fruit, "Chinese gooseberry", had political connotations due to the Cold War, and to further distinguish it from real gooseberries, which are prone to a fungus called anthracnose. An American importer, Norman Sondag of San Francisco, complained that "melonettes" was as bad as "Chinese gooseberry" because melons and berries were both subject to high import tariffs, and instead asked for a short Maori name that quickly connoted New Zealand. In June 1959, during a meeting of Turners and Growers management in Auckland, Jack Turner suggested the name
Fiber to the premises by country government announced an expansion of the UFB programme to cover smaller towns and communities. By the end of 2022, 87% of the New Zealand population will be able to receive fibre-to-the-premises broadband at Gigabit speeds. Telecom New Zealand (Now Spark), the major telecommunications company in New Zealand, started a FTTP trial dubbed Next Generation Broadband (NGB) in Flat Bush, a new subdivision in South Auckland in May 2006. The NGB provides up to 30 Mbit/s downstream speeds over a Passive Optical Network (PON) with the only cost to the customers during the trial being a NZ$50 activation fee. This trial