Fibre uptake past 20% in Christchurch suburbs

Enable Networks reports it is connecting about 600 customers a month to the Christchurch fibre network. It has a total of 6,100 customers already connected — making a total uptake of 11 percent across the city. That’s a little better than the national average.

Three Christchurch suburbs now have more than 20 percent of premises connected to the network. Rolleston tops the list with 24 percent connected, Burnside is on 22 and Addington has 20 percent.

These numbers are good. In fact, sign-up rates are improving at a fast clip across the entire country. This underlines the wisdom of extending the UFB network beyond the 75 percent of the population into smaller towns.

Meanwhile, the fibre roll-out is paying off in terms of overall speeds. The latest Akamai State of the Internet report notes New Zealand saw a huge 21 percent quarter-on-quarter rise in average fixed connection speed, taking it up to 6.8Mbps. The year-on-year headline speed is up 47 percent.

New Zealand’s average peak fixed connection speed climbed 31 percent in the quarter to 31.8Mbps. That’s a 52 percent year-on-year increase.