Ian Taylor, chief executive of Animation Research Ltd (ARL), blasted the city's ''disappointing'' attempts to make the most of its GigCity advantage at yesterday's Dunedin City Council public forum.
Mr Taylor told councillors last year's Gigatown victory should form a key part of progress towards the city's economic development goals, including creating 10,000 extra jobs by 2022.
Instead, there appeared to be little sign of progress, almost a year to the day since the Gigatown win.
''Winning Gigatown was one of the greatest branding opportunities the city could have had ... we haven't taken advantage of it,'' he said.
Dunedin saw off competition from other New Zealand centres to claim the title in Chorus' Gigatown competition on November 26 last year. It meant Dunedin was promised gig-speed internet at entry-level broadband prices until February 2018, although the discount was extended by a year - to February 2019 - last month.
Much of the work since has taken place behind the scenes, although there have been some public signs of progress since the win. That included last month's launch of New Zealand's first gigabit-speed free public Wi-Fi in the Octagon, offering speeds more than 50 times faster than the Wi-Fi it replaced.
Other free gig-speed Wi-Fi sites were expected to be commissioned across the city within months, and Chorus has announced it will accelerate its rollout of fibre across the city to complete the project by December 2017.
But Mr Taylor, speaking yesterday, said the city needed to do more to make the most of the competitive advantage. The city's economic development strategy was ''a lot of words'', but said nothing about the types of new jobs it sought to create, he said.
The city was already home to some leading high-tech businesses, like ADinstruments, and Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall had been ''blown away'' by what they saw during their visit earlier this month, he said.
But Dunedin needed to do more to bolster its faltering economy, and could do so by tapping into the ''lightning fast highway'' of gigabit internet speeds it now had at its fingertips, he said.
The city's success in becoming the first southern hemisphere centre to obtain gigabit internet speeds had drawn international attention at events he had attended, Mr Taylor said.
But the council appeared not to be communicating with businesses like his, which could help, and councillors seemed more interested in fighting over ''trivial stuff'', he said.
It ''beggars belief'' only one councillor - Cr Andrew Whiley - had volunteered to visit ARL's Dunedin office in the last 15 years, while two others accepted invitations to do the same.
''We feel ignored,'' Mr Taylor said.
The council needed to prioritise the creation of high value jobs for young people, and GigCity initiatives should be at the heart of that, he believed.
All new spending decisions should be considered in that context, meaning funding for investments in other areas, like the city's new cycleways, might have to wait, he said.
Cr Kate Wilson questioned whether cycleways would provide a lifestyle that attracted talented young people, while Cr Mike Lord pointed out some jobs - 1000 at last count - were being created.
''It is a start. I don't think we are doing it all wrong,'' Cr Lord said.
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull, contacted last night, said progress was being made in a variety of ways, from employment initiatives like the Sexy Summer Jobs programme to planning the rollout of GigCity projects.
That was being led by GigCity Dunedin, not the council, although it supported the project and provided funding to assist, he said.
''Quite a few of the things ... Ian's talking about, we are already doing.
''I think there's been some real positives,'' Mr Cull said.
