"If it was all that easy, private investors would be jumping up and down to start rolling out fibre-to-the-home and we wouldn't need the Government to step in.
"That not being the case, we will have to face the reality that the Government is facing a political agenda as well as a business agenda."
The political agenda forced the Government to come up with plans and promises as quickly as possible, while the business side was forcing it to be prudent and conservative, Mr Budde told the Otago Daily Times.
In the end, the most important element was that the investment provided maximum economic and social benefits to New Zealand.
The network was not there for high-speed internet and entertainment but it would have to be trans-sectoral in providing infrastructure for e-health, e-education, smart grids, smart cities and smart buildings.
"This is not an easy task and such a massive plan can't and shouldn't be developed overnight.
"The $300 million backbone has to be done anyway, and as such can be seen slightly separately from the bigger plan.
This allowed the Government to use it as a quick win to also look after their political agenda," he said.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce said getting fast broadband to the 25% of New Zealanders living outside the scope of the Government's urban initiative was a priority.
About half of rural households were coping with dial-up speeds at present, and that was not good enough.
Within six years, Mr Joyce expected 93% of rural schools would receive fibre-optic cable, enabling speeds of at least 100Mbps, and the remaining 7% to achieve speeds of at least 10Mbps.
More than 80% of rural households would have access to broadband with speeds of at least 5Mbps within six years, with the remainder to achieve speeds of at least 1Mbps, Mr Joyce said.
"Providing fibre to the vast majority of rural schools will effectively deliver the capacity to provide faster broadband to the communities they serve. Fibre backhaul is currently the primary limiting factor in the delivery of rural broadband and getting fibre to the schools will address that."
Taken together with the Government's $1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband investment, the achievement of those rural targets would mean that 97% of New Zealand schools and 99.7% of New Zealand students would have access to broadband speeds of 100Mbps or greater.
The initial focus would be on those areas that would not benefit from Telecom's fibre-to-the-node upgrade programme, Mr Joyce said.
"Telecom's current programme will get us from 75% to 84%. The new challenge will be delivering fast broadband beyond the 84% and delivering fibre to the majority of rural schools."
However, Labour Party communications and IT spokeswoman Clare Curran raised some issues about the introducrion.
There were serious concerns in the industry that the Government was lining up Telecom to lead the introduction of rural broadband, and possibly throughout the rest of the country which would entrench Telecom's position as a monopoly, she said.
"How will the Minister ensure that the old Telecom copper network is not recreated in the fibre world? And what protections are in place to ensure open and cost-based access to the rural fibre network?"
Mr Joyce had failed to answer those questions in Parliament and had delayed the announcements on the broadband launch for months.
A Telecom monopoly would be a disaster for New Zealand's communications industry and for the important new infrastructure, Ms Curran said.
Mr Budde said it seemed the Government's plan had been developed around a blueprint that made it possible for the Government to involve Chorus, the functionally separated arm of Telecom.
"While this might raise some eyebrows, the reality is that without Chorus, it would be extremely difficult to realise such a regional telecoms plan."
It was essential the backbone of the plan got full attention.
Without it, it would never be possible to increase the quality of the network and, with a sell-designed backbone, the local loop connections - either copper or wireless - could potentially offer significantly higher speeds than those mentioned by Mr Joyce, Mr Budde said.
"It makes sense for the Government to be conservative here and it is up to the industry to deliver better."
