Howzat? Another NZ broadband record reached on Friday

Technology Editor/Senior Business Writer·NZ Herald·

8 Mar, 2021 04:33 AM2 mins to read

Image / 123rf

New Zealand broadband use has peaked at another all-time high of 3.20 terabits per second.

Network operator Chorus says it clocked the new benchmark on Friday - an action-packed day as the morning's tsunami threat washed into a crucial lockdown decision in the afternoon and New Zealand took on Australia in the T20 cricket in the evening, which could only be viewed via streaming on Spark Sport.

The previous record of 3.15 terabits per second was hit during the August lockdown last year.

That was almost broken last week as Chorus registered its second-highest ever peak of 3.10 tbps amid the triple whammy of the fourth Auckland lockdown, a patch update to the popular game Call of Duty and a seat-smashing cricket match on Spark Sport.

Chorus - fending off new competition from wireless broadband - says its network can handle 3.5 tbps and it has plans to open the taps. At the company's recent interim result, chief executive JB Rousselot said the maximum speed broadband plan today - the 4 gigabit per second iteration of Hyperfibre - should be available in an 8 gigabit per second flavour by the end of this year. Chorus was testing a 25 gigabit per second plan, he said.

Before the pandemic hit, Chorus's all-time record was the 2.6 tbps hit during the 2019 Rugby World Cup. That event saw some hiccups for Spark Sport. On Friday night, as the new record was hit, no major issues were reported.

A spokesman for Spark said the Black Caps v Australia series had been a hit, "with the concurrent streams for matches three, four and five being the highest on Spark Sport since the Rugby World Cup". However, the company is not disclosing any exact figures.

The average household is now using around 500 gigabytes of data per month, Chorus says, or about five times as much as in 2016, as streaming goes mainstream. Some 80 per cent of households are now on uncapped plans.

Chorus shares were recently trading at $8.04c.

The stock is up 6.47 per cent for the year.