Record Broadband Data Use By Wellington Homes And Businesses

New figures from Chorus' network reporting show that Wellington’s reliance on high-speed broadband connectivity shows no sign of letting up as digital lifestyles increasingly become the norm. Despite lockdown restrictions easing, Wellington residents’ data consumption continues to speed up, not slow down.

The average Wellington home and small business used 493 gigabytes (GB) of broadband data in October this year compared to 347 GB in 2019, an increase of 42 per cent.

Kurt Rodgers, network strategy manager at Chorus, believes our burgeoning data consumption has put connectivity at the forefront of what’s essential in our home and working lives.

“In the first six weeks of the recent lockdown Chorus’ fixed networks carried more than an exabyte of data. That’s one billion gigabytes; it’s more than all the data carried in 2015, the year Netflix launched in New Zealand.

“Lockdown forced us to change our online behaviours and adopt more digital tools and services in many aspects of our life. Video calling, in particular, has absolutely become the new norm, and it’s not just for working-from-home and learning; it’s also for keeping in touch with friends and family. All this video drives more demand for data, and more demand for faster and reliable fibre broadband,” said Rodgers.

Nationally, the average New Zealand home used about 515 GB of broadband data in October this year compared with 329 GB at the same time in 2019, an increase of 57 per cent.

The demand for data shows no signs of slowing, prompting Chorus to announce its largest-ever performance upgrade for fibre customers.

The ‘Big Fibre Boost’ initiative will see Chorus work closely with broadband retailers to upgrade customers on its wholesale 100 Mbps fibre service this year. Where broadband retailers flow through the upgrade to their residential customers, the change will triple the download speed to 300 Mbps, while increasing the upload speed five-fold from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps. Two business fibre plans are also set to benefit.

Chorus expects the move to catapult New Zealand up the world’s broadband rankings, with its projections showing the country may move well into the top ten for fastest broadband in the world by early 2022.

“In 2011, at the start of the Ultra-Fast Broadband build, 30 Mbps was considered a great broadband speed. In 2015, as Kiwis took streaming to heart, great broadband increased to 100 Mbps. We recognise that it is now time to shift up a gear again to ensure New Zealanders can take real advantage of the connectivity available to them,” Rodgers says.

Comparison of Chorus network regional data usage: October 2019 and October 2021

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