- Survey Methodology
Chapter 2. The Survey
Survey Methodology
A mail out survey to rural addresses was used to obtain information from rural users of telecommunications services about the quality of the infrastructure, and specific issues such as access to emergency services. The survey was developed and finalised in conjunction with MAF Policy. A full description of the survey methodology and a copy of the survey text is found in Appendix I: The Survey.
An analysis based on 1,000 returned surveys was determined to be the best tradeoff between level of accuracy required and cost. Surveys were sent to 56 rural delivery districts, selected to provide a good geographic and community spread. Of the 15,612 surveys sent out (approximately 10% of the entire Rural Delivery sampling frame), 2,979 were returned within 3 weeks of distribution. This is an overall return rate of 19% which is excellent for a mail survey, and is indicative of the interest this topic generates within the rural community.
Characteristics of Respondents
Activities At Survey Location
In response to the question "Which of the following best describe your situation (tick all those that apply)" the following results were obtained (Table 1):
Table 1. Activity at survey location
| Category | % |
| Sheep and beef | 32 |
| Dairy | 15 |
| Horticulture | 2 |
| Arable | 1 |
| Forestry | 1 |
| Other agricultural | 3 |
| Small Block | 23 |
| Residence Only | 15 |
| Non-farm Business | 6 |
| Other non-agricultural | 2 |
Of the activities reported, 53% were agricultural in nature and 1% forestry; 23% were small block holders; and 23% were non-agricultural in nature. Clearly, rural telecommunications use goes well beyond serving the needs of agriculture alone, and extends to a wide range of activities with a wide range of requirements. Of significance is the finding that 38% of the responding locations were small blocks and residences.
The "Other" category gives an interesting insight into the very wide range of activities being undertaken on rural properties in addition to what are considered to be the usual rural occupations (Table 2).
Of "other" activities, 42% involved some form of agriculture, 14% were in forestry, 11% were schools or schooling, and 13% in tourism related activities.
Table 2. Breakdown of "Other" activities category
| Activity | % |
| Horses | 11 |
| Other agricultural | 31 |
| Forestry | 14 |
| Marine | 3 |
| Tourism | 13 |
| Schooling | 11 |
| Crafts | 4 |
| Other non-agricultural | 13 |
Distance of Respondents From Population Centres
Survey respondents were asked to indicate how far they were from the nearest village, town, and city. This question was asked to get an indication of the respondent's proximity to population centres of varying sizes. No exact definitions were assigned to village, town, and city as it was considered more pragmatic to get indicative information, but with a high response rate to the question.
The reason for this question was to get an idea of the distribution of rural users of telecommunications services. This approach, and indeed the survey sampling frame, may under-estimate the users in the belt immediately around large centres as some of these people will receive their mail in the local post office, and so not be on the Rural Delivery system.
The distance that is of most interest is the distance of the respondent from the telephone exchange; however, this is not the type of information most people will know so distance to the nearest village and town was used as a proxy. Table 3, Figure 1, and Figure 2 (see below) give the cumulative proportion of respondents living within a specified distance of a village, town, and city. For example, 5% of all respondents reported living within 1km of a village, 5kms of a town, and 6kms of a city; while all (100%) reported living within 100, 260, and 300kms of a village, town, and city respectively.
Table 3. Distance from population centres
Cumulative % of Respondents |
Live Within X kms of a Village |
Live Within X kms of a Town |
Live Within X kms of a City |
5 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
10 |
2 |
6 |
10 |
20 |
3 |
10 |
15 |
30 |
5 |
13 |
25 |
40 |
6 |
16 |
40 |
50 |
8 |
20 |
50 |
60 |
10 |
27 |
70 |
70 |
12 |
33 |
80 |
80 |
16 |
40 |
100 |
90 |
20 |
60 |
130 |
95 |
30 |
80 |
160 |
100 |
100 |
260 |
300 |
Figure 1. Where do the respondents live in relation to towns ?
Figure 2. Where do respondents live in relation to villages?
Overall, it is apparent that the vast majority of respondents live at a significant distance from population centres of any size in terms of telecommunications technology and infrastructure. For example, distances in excess of 3-4kms from a telephone exchange are considered excessive for new technologies such as ADSL which are being used to provide greater bandwidth on existing copper-wire into homes and offices.
Effect Of Distance On Activity At Location
From experience we can expect land use patterns to change with distance from population centres with the assumption being that small block holders and residential-only properties will be aggregated nearer to population centres.
Figure 3 a & b illustrate the changing pattern of activities at the survey location with distance from the nearest population centre. In the first graph the number of respondents is shown, while in the second the number expressed as a percentage in each land use classification is shown. Note that these are number of respondents independent of the amount of land used for the activity at the location, so differ from the more usual land use graphs, which are on an area basis.
The land use patterns shown here are consistent with data from Statistics New Zealand's 1992 Review of Agriculture (Statistics New Zealand, 1994) which showed 20% of farms at that time were under 10ha in size, and that there had been a 31% increase in the number of farms under 10ha during the preceding decade.
Figure 3a Activity at survey location as a function of distance (number of respondents by distance ie. illustrates population density effects)
Figure 3b Activity at survey location as a function of distance (percentage of respondents by distance ie. excluding population density effects)
As expected, there is a higher proportion of respondents near the population centres, and of these, a higher proportion are non-agricultural or small block holders. (Nevertheless, there is still a significant proportion of the rural population involved in non-farm activities even at a distance from population centres). The telecommunications system needs to service a wide range of types of users throughout all of rural New Zealand.
Communications Equipment Used
Survey respondents were asked what communication devices they owned and used (Table 4). Computers were included in the list of devices of interest, as a computer is a key requirement for use of the Internet.
Table 4. Communication devices used at survey location
| Device | % of Respondents |
| Telephone | 99 |
| Fax | 58 |
| Mobile Phone | 70 |
| R/T | 5 |
| Computer | 61 |
| Satellite Dish | 17 |
This is a highly "wired" population:
- Of the 1002 responses analysed, less than 1% (6 locations) did not own a telephone. Of these, 4 had a mobile phone and so were not "incommunicado".
- Mobile phone penetration at 70% is quite high, especially in the light of many of the negative comments regarding mobile coverage in rural areas. This issue is addressed in this report.
- The ownership of computers is also considered to be high at 61% of the respondents.
There is an interesting correlation between the ownership of computers and the ownership of mobile phones as shown in Table 5.
Table 5. Correlation between computer and mobile phone ownership
Computer Ownership |
|||
Yes |
No |
||
| Mobile | Yes | 50 |
20 |
| Ownership | No | 11 |
19 |
Survey locations without a computer were equally as likely to own a mobile phone as to not own a mobile phone (20% vs 19% of respondents). On the other hand, for locations where a computer is owned, 50% reported also owning a mobile phone, and only 11% reported not owning a mobile phone. This type of technology aggregation is not unusual, and is a good example of how individuals adopt "planes" of technology.
Computer Ownership And Internet Access At Survey Location
A total of 61% of respondents had a computer. When computer ownership was broken down by the type of activity reported for the location, we can see a higher rate of computer ownership amongst the non-farming rural businesses, than agriculturalists and small block holders (Table 6).
Table 6. Computer ownership broken down by type of activity
| Activity | % owning a computer |
| Business | 76 |
| Agricultural | 61 |
| Residential/Small Block | 60 |
Overall, 48% of the responding rural locations had Internet access at the survey location. This equates to 81% of the respondents with computers having Internet access. For those locations where a computer was owned, only minor differences were found in Internet access associated with different types of activities (Table 7).
Table 7. Proportion of computers with access to Internet
| Activity | % of computers with access to Internet |
| Business | 86 |
| Agricultural | 80 |
| Residential/Small Block | 82 |
Overall, national adoption rates in other countries show almost 50% of American households now have Internet access (NUA Internet Surveys, 2000a), and 28% of all households in Australia (NUA Internet Surveys, 2000b). The Australian statistics showed an annual 33% increase in the number of households with Internet access demonstrating the difficulty of getting comparable statistics on such a rapidly changing topic.
It is difficult to find meaningful comparative statistics for level of computer adoption and Internet access in rural vs urban areas. American information indicates less than one-quarter of rural households have access to the Internet (Rohde, 2000), compared with the approximately 50% reported in our survey. There is no way to judge the level of bias which may exist in this survey as a result of differences in the non-responding population; however, the results indicated a significantly greater uptake of the Internet at this time in rural New Zealand.
What Is Telecommunications Time Spent On?
Respondents were asked to categorise their telecommunications use into business, family, volunteer work, and education in order to get an idea of the types of use to which telecommunications were being put (Table 8). Business and family uses account for 86% of total usage.
Table 8. Ways in which telecommunications are used at survey locations
| Use | Percentage of total use |
| Business | 39 |
| Family | 47 |
| Volunteer Work | 6 |
| Education | 8 |
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Contact for Enquiries
Rural Affairs Coordinator
Sector Performance Policy
MAF Policy
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
PO Box 2526
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
Phone: +64 4 894 0675
Fax: +64 4 4 894 0745
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