Chorus says it has upgraded 125 cabinets of its copper broadband network in rural areas, adding equipment able to deliver VDSL services to customers and backhauling them with optical fibre.
It says the $7 million programme will considerably improve the broadband experience for about 10,000 rural customers.
“Residents and businesses should now be able to experience speeds of up to 25Mpbs on ADSL2,” Chorus said. “About 80 percent of customers are able to upgrade to VDSL broadband for even faster internet. The average speed on a VDSL connection is about 45Mbps.”
Before the cabinet upgrades, Chorus said residents and businesses in the upgraded areas could generally only access broadband speeds of 5Mbps or less.
“More importantly, the upgraded infrastructure means better quality broadband,” Chorus said. “For example, during peak times when lots of people are streaming online video, broadband speeds will remain consistent.”
Chorus also revealed that the average data download by households across its copper and fibre networks in July was 167GB, a 50 percent increase from 108GB in July 2016.
In June at the peak time, 9pm, the aggregate data consumption across Chorus’ broadband networks, excluding corporate traffic, peaked at an average of 1,084Gbps, a 51 percent increase from June 2016.
Kurt Rodgers, network strategy manager at Chorus, said the figures showed why New Zealanders should take up a fibre or VDSL fixed line broadband connection, which offer dedicated capacity and the option of an unlimited data plan.