Mobile data use soars over Christmas period

One NZ has built 80 new mobile sites, 40 new small cells and upgraded a further 270 sites to keep people connected.Picture supplied

The festive period is not just a busy time for Santa and his elves, it is also the busiest time of the year for mobile telecommunications networks.

One New Zealand says 2519 TB (Tera Bytes) of data went across its mobile network on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, compared to 2054 TB of data on the same two days last year — a 23 percent increase year-on-year.

That’s equivalent to Kiwis streaming more than 1,679,249 hours of video in just two days.

The most popular time to go online and stream that Christmas movie, video call family or check the latest deals was between 8pm and 9pm on both Christmas and Boxing days, with peaks seeing 79 TB and 86 TB of data used respectively.

“This year we have added capacity across our end-to-end mobile network to support an approximately 30 percent increase in overall projected data usage,” says One NZ head of network services Sharina Nisha.

“We’ve done a heap of work preparing for skyrocketing data demand over summer and we’re confident our network can cope with all those Christmas family video calls and New Year’s Eve selfies.”

In the past 12 months One NZ has built 80 new mobile sites, 40 new small cells and upgraded a further 270 sites to keep people connected. Over the festive season it also deploys 16 cellsite-on-wheels (COWs) in areas where extra demand is expected, such as at events and in holiday towns.

“Over the summer we’ll be deploying our COWs at events like Rhythm and Vines, Rhythm and Alps, Northern Base, One Love, Festival One, SPLORE, Big Gay Out and one at Hagley Park to cover everything happening there. We’ve also sent COWs to Whangamatā and Mangawhai to add a bit of capacity at those locations.

“Last year the spot that saw the biggest increase in year-on-year data use was Lake Rotoiti, which had a 1869 percent jump, followed by Opito Bay with 492 percent, Pataua with 471 percent and Cook Beach with 329 percent. These are huge increases.

“We also look to maximise coverage at other busy spots in the holidays including the nation’s shopping malls and along traffic routes heading out of the main centres.

This year global mobile benchmarking company Umlaut rated One NZ as New Zealand’s “best in test” mobile network operator, and the company was rated the country’s fastest network in the September quarter by mobile data speed testing company Ookla. Its customers also enjoyed up to 30 percent increases in speed on 5G across the country following a full network re-tune to incorporate the new 5G spectrum.

“While we’re confident the network is in good shape and we’ve got a great team looking after it 24/7 over the holiday period, some areas will likely experience congestion at busy times and we apologise in advance and ask for patience if that occurs.

“Next year the biggest thing that will transform mobile coverage across New Zealand will be our collaboration with SpaceX to deliver satellite-to-cell connectivity to customers outside existing mobile coverage areas. We’ll initially be launching a text message service by the end of 2024, with voice and data services the following year,” Nisha said.