Data use doubled in 2015 thanks to streaming

Chorus reports the amount of broadband data used per household doubled in 2015. Data use is likely to continue growing at this pace for the foreseeable future.

New Zealanders used an average 96GB of broadband data per household in January– that’s almost doubled in a year https://t.co/RHT1ZvVU9L ^Jon

— Chorus NZ (@ChorusNZ) March 11, 2016

We call it the Netflix effect

It’s called the Netflix effect and it is one reason why demand for UFB fibre services is running ahead of expectation. It might equally be called the Lightbox effect. New Zealand’s data demand first took off when Spark launched its home grown streaming service.

By one measure the number of people already connected to the part-built network has gone past the figure planners expected to see in 2020 after the network is complete.

If anything, New Zealanders are more in love with streaming video than overseas. I can’t find local numbers but they won’t be far different from those in this chart for North America.