Broadband progress in North

Chorus has completed the upgrading of broadband cabinets at Kawakawa, Okaihau, Russell, Peria and Towai, as part of a $5 million rural upgrade.

"Slow internet speeds have been a concern for businesses and residents for a while, so it's pleasing to be able to provide substantially improved infrastructure," GM infrastructure Ed Beattie said.

"There's no question that access to better broadband makes a significant difference to the lives of New Zealanders, and this programme of work shows how passionate we are about improving rural connectivity."

Those living within about 1.2km of the upgraded cabinets should now be able to access fibre-enabled VDSL broadband with consistent speeds up to 70Mbps.

Those further away would also likely experience much improved speeds, depending on the distance to the cabinet.

More importantly, Mr Beattie said, the upgraded infrastructure meant better-quality broadband.

For example, during peak times, when a lot of people were streaming online video, broadband speeds would remain consistent, contrary to wireless services over mobile broadband that shared capacity with other users.

"Typically homes now have several connected devices at any one time, so we're all using far more internet data," he added.

"This is borne out by recent statistics that show about half of all residential broadband plans are now unlimited."

And in most cases, if VDSL was available at an address, the upgrade could be completed remotely.