Queenstown-Lakes residents’ data consumption increased by 18%, from 322 gigabytes (GB) to 378GB, between October, 2019 and October, 2021.
And new figures from Chorus’ network reporting show the average Queenstown-Lakes and Central Otago home and small business used 401GB of broadband data this October, compared to 295GB in October, 2019, representing a 36% increase.
Chorus’ network strategy manager Kurt Rodgers says lockdown forced people to change their online behaviours and adopt more digital tools and services, with particular reliance on video calling, which is driving demand for data and faster, reliable, fibre broadband.
That’s prompted Chorus to announce its largest-ever performance upgrade for fibre customers, which will see it work with broadband retailers to upgrade customers on its wholesale 100 megabits per second (Mbps) fibre service this year, which will triple the download speed to 300 Mbps, and increase the upload speed five-fold, from 20 Mbps to 100 Mbps.
‘‘In 2011, at the start of the Ultra-Fast Broadband build, 30 Mbps was considered a great broadband speed,’’ Rodgers says.
‘‘In 2015 … 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.’’
