Hyperfibre 8Gbps - 160 times first UFB speeds

It’s less than ten years since Orcon connected the first customers to New Zealand’s Ultrafast broadband network.

The first customers connected in September 2011. Four schools in Whangarei purchased 50mbps plans.

At the time teachers were excited about not waiting to download videos.

This week Orcon connected its first 8Gbps account. The connection runs at 160 times the speed of those first connections.

An 8Gbps Orcon fibre plan costs $200 a month. That’s about twice the price of a Fibre Maxplan.

8Gbps Hyperfibre

The 8Gbps symmetric Hyperfibre connection is a Chorus product. It uses the same basic open access fibre network as the first UFB connections, albeit with different switching gear.

This underlines the fibre network’s ability to handle improved performance.

Ed Hyde, Chorus’ chief customer officer says expanding its Hyperfibre family to include an 8Gbps option shows New Zealand is among the world’s most technically advanced nations.

At the time of writing 8Gbps Hyperfibre is available to about 150,000 premises in Auckland and Wellington.

Orcon

Orcon boss Taryn Hamilton makes no secret his company likes to be the first with new broadband technologies. His company connected the first UFB account, Now it has connected the fastest.

It’s a strategy that has paid off for Orcon. As Hamilton says: “If there’s one thing we have learned over the years, it’s that people will always find ways to make the most of the latest technology.”

When Chorus first talked about Hyperfibre, people inside the wholesale telco saw it as a product for business users. After all, there aren’t any consumer broadband applications that need 8Gbps. Even a busy household’s needs would be satisfied by a gigabit connection.

Yet consumers are buying the fastest possible connections. Chorus says there are now hundreds of Hyperfibre customers. Of those that have the technology. It says 86 percent are consumers.

Moreover, almost two-thirds of customers on Hyperfibre have bought the, until now, fastest 4Gbps symmetrical service.