Chorus network connections hit 100Mbps average

Chorus says the average connection speed across its network has now passed 100Mbps. This is ten times the average connection speed eight years ago.

Last month also saw the busiest day yet on the company’s network: total usage hit 1.815Tbps. The previous record was 1.792Tbps.

Chorus network strategy manager Kurt Rodgers says 71 percent of the company’s fibre customers are now on 100Mbps. A further 44,000, around three percent of the 1.5 million connections on the Chorus network, are now on 1Gbps plans. This is up 22 percent on the previous quarter.

High speed plans

Most of the rise in average connection speed comes down to the popularity of high speed plans.

One feature of New Zealand’s regulated fibre broadband is the narrow spread of price between slower and faster plans. In Singapore, a 1Gbps plan costs many time the price of a 100Mbps plan. Here the difference is closer to 25 percent.

Another reason to opt for faster plans is that many of today’s plans are uncapped. There’s less point in buying one of the fastest plans if the extra speed means you download your data allowance in a few days.

Improving speed isn’t all at the top end. Rodgers says awareness of VDSL (Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line) technology, which boosts speeds on copper connections, is also on the rise.

At the same time, VDSL speeds have increased in recent years. Before switching to fibre I had a VDSL connection. When I first started it ran at around 18Mbps. This later climbed to 35Mbps or thereabouts. By the time fibre was laid in my street, the VDSL connection was giving me 70Mbps.

He says, “Dunedin has the highest average connection speed at 361Mbps, largely due to the high volume of gig connections”. This will be, in part, because of the earlier Gigatown promotion. This saw the city connected to faster fibre ahead of the rest of the country.

“Coming in second is Wellington, at an average of 116Mbps, followed closely by Auckland at 111Mbps,” he says.

Will get faster than 100Mbps

“With more and more consumers choosing gigabit plans and our recent announcement that we will start trialling 10Gbps in mid-March, we can only expect average speeds to continue to grow,” Rodgers says.

Chorus says fibre users now average 315GB per month. Most of this is down to the rise in streaming video. This is reflected in time-of-day statistics, which show average throughput on the network now peaks at around 8.30pm in the evening.