The average broadband connection speed in December was at 64 megabits per second.

The average broadband connection speed in New Zealand has more than tripled in the past three years.

According to network company Chorus, the average broadband connection speed in December was at 64 megabits per second.

New Zealand is ranked 21 in the world for fastest connection speed, a significant change from coming 42nd in 2016.

Singapore has the fastest broadband connection speed in the world, at 166 mbps.

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* Chorus: NZ would be irrational to duplicate 5G infrastructure

Chorus, which is building most of the country's ultrafast broadband network, says it could add a network of 5G access points to its fibre network to avoid the need for unnecessary duplication.

Spokesman Ian Bonnar said that by 2025, there could be fibre-connected 5G access points every "couple of hundred metres apart", if not closer.

Bonnar said Chorus would not get involved in the mobile market, and instead would be part of the wholesale infrastructure.

Chorus chief executive Kate McKenzie said broadband was a commodity that needed to be provided as affordably and reliably as possible.

She said globally, countries were seeking to balance a clear need for high quality internet access with the increasingly challenging economics of building and delivering the technology.

In August last year, $270 million was allocated to a communications infrastructure package, on top of the $150m previously announced, to extend and speed up the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) build, and to roll out improved rural broadband and mobile coverage.

According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's September 2017 quarterly broadband report, fibre will be available to 87 per cent of New Zealanders by the end of 2022.

UFB can deliver speeds close to 1000 mbps, depending on a user's plan.

As at September 2017, there were 460,000 UFB fibre connections out of the 1.2 million households and businesses able to connect to UFB.

The price of phone and broadband services in New Zealand dropped significantly at the end of last year.

In the fourth quarter of 2017, the price of telecommunication services dropped by a little over 6 per cent from the same time, the previous year.

According to the Commerce Commission's annual telecommunications monitoring report, the average monthly household spending on telecommunications was $135 in 2016, down $10 from 2010.

Learn more about the information shown above, and explore more charts, at Figure.NZ's site.