12th September 2016

New Zealand to get nationwide gigabit broadband

New Zealand's largest telecoms firm, Chorus Limited, has announced that it will extend its one gigabit (1Gbps) residential and SME business fibre broadband service across its entire Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) footprint from 1st October 2016.

This move follows Chorus leading the introduction of gigabit services to New Zealand – proving both the demand and the technical viability – after the launch of its gigabit services in Dunedin last year. The company has long had national gigabit broadband on its product roadmap and from October will make it available on any UFB connection.

"We are delighted that other fibre providers have joined Chorus in championing gigabit residential and business services," said Mark Ratcliffe, the CEO. "Making New Zealand a true 'Gignation', beyond the 5,000-plus connections we have in Dunedin, should see us catapulted up the league tables of broadband speed rankings and reinforce the high quality of the broadband infrastructure we're rolling out."

Currently, the average download speed across Chorus' networks is 30.5 megabits per second (Mbps). Gigabit broadband offers real world download speeds approaching 1,000Mbps and uploads of 500Mbps. This is equivalent to uploading 25 high resolution images to Facebook in under five seconds; downloading 25 MP3 songs in a second or streaming ultra-HD movies to 40 different devices simultaneously.

Chorus' Gigabit broadband service will run at the maximum speed the network electronics allows today. In practice, this means customers will see download speeds between 900Mbps and 970Mbps and upload speeds of up to 500Mbps.

Chorus' residential wholesale gigabit broadband will be available to broadband retailers at an introductory price of $60 per month until 30 June 2017 after which it increases to $65 per month. The business service will be priced at $75 per month from launch. Existing fibre customers looking to upgrade to a gigabit plan will not require a Chorus technician to visit their home.

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