Big changes to internet for residents in the North of New Zealand when it comes to the quality of their broadband connectivity.
Chorus, the wholesale broadband network provider for the area has completed the upgrading of broadband cabinets at Kawakawa, Okaihau, Russell, Peria and Towai, as part of a $5 million rural upgrade.
The announcement came last week and GM infrastructure Ed Beattie said "Slow internet speeds have been a concern for businesses and residents for a while, so it's pleasing to be able to provide substantially improved infrastructure. There's no question that access to better broadband makes a significant difference to the lives of New Zealanders, and this programme of work shows how passionate we are about improving rural connectivity."
The main change to the technology will be the availability of VDSL broadband (read more about VDSL here). Those residents in the towns that have seen the upgrades and are living within about 1.2km of the upgraded cabinets should now be able to access fibre-enabled VDSL broadband with consistent speeds up to 70Mbps. Check your address here.
Those further away from the upgraded cabinets would also still likely experience much improved broadband speeds, but due to the limitations of the copper network this will depend on the distance to the cabinet. According to Mr Beattie, the biggest benefit of the upgraded infrastructure would be a better-quality broadband experience. For example, during peak broadband usage times, when a lot of connections and devices stream online video or surf the internet, the broadband speeds that users received would remain consistent, meaning a better quality experience. This is very different to some people’s experience on wireless services that operate over mobile broadband as they need to share capacity with other users.
"Typically homes now have several connected devices at any one time, so we're all using far more internet data," he added. "This is borne out by recent statistics that show about half of all residential broadband plans are now unlimited."
In most cases, if you are in one of the upgraded areas then the change to VDSL can be completed remotely with very little, if any, disruption. Check your address now and see if you can upgrade to VDSL broadband. Here at Broadband Compare we have some fantastic VDSL plans from some great suppliers. Enter your address now and compare VDSL internet plans for free by clicking here.
