New Zealand broadband data hits peak

Chorus’ network hit its 2017 broadband data peak at 9.25pm on December 10. The network was delivering 1.328 Terabits per second.

We once measured large amounts of data in terms of books or towers of compact discs between here and the moon. This time Chorus says the peak was the same as 260,000 HD video streams being watched at the same time.

Four days into 2018 high demand during a storm broke the record. On January 4, at the same hour, the network hit 1.33 Terabits per second. No doubt the broadband data record will soon broken again as numbers continue to climb.

The people of Porirua are the most voracious data consumers. In December the average household chewed through 202GB, that’s 34 percent up on a year earlier.

Nationwide average data consumption on the Chorus network is now 174GB a month. That’s up from 123GB a year ago.

Fibre accounts use more data

Users with fibre accounts use more broadband data than those with a copper connection. While the average monthly data base across the entire Chorus network is 174GB, customers with fibre use around 250GB.

In September a Chorus forecast said this will climb to an average of around 680GB a month by 2020. In part the rise will come as more accounts move from copper to fibre.

The growth is largely about television moving from broadcast distribution to online, on-demand delivery.

Chorus network strategy manager Kurt Rodgers says it is not just the big international providers like Netflix driving this change. He says TVNZ and Three launched live streamingin 2017 and that has helped online television become mainstream.

Rodgers says people are watching on smart TVs, but they also watch on phones and tablets connected to home wi-fi networks. He says phone handsets are used more often with wi-fi than as traditional phones.

Broadband speeds on the Chorus network are also higher. Dunedin, which was the original Gigatown now has an average connection speed of 265Mbps. Rotorua is next on 72Mbps and Wellington is in third sport with 70Mbps. The national average across the Chorus network is 64Mbps.

A note on broadband data averages

Chorus measures average use because that makes number sense for a network operator. It divides the total amount of data across the network by the number of user accounts.

The figure is, simple, easy to understand and demonstrates how demand for data is growing. It helps Chorus plan for growth. It makes discussion straightforward.

Not everyone likes this measure. Some point out that the data use pattern is not a Bell curve. They says that a small number of high-end users skew the average number higher. They argue that the median amount of data used is lower than the average.

There’s something in this. Yet the median and the average numbers are moving closer as more and more New Zealanders switch to streaming video. Or in other words, high data use is becoming mainstream