Gigatowns pose new challenge

Gigatowns have a new challenge in the latest Chorus competition.

People are being asked to create an Instagram video that creatively demonstrates the difference in speed and capacity of a 1GB fibre connection compared to today's broadband.

Chorus has given an example of one person going down a slide, symbolising broadband speed and capacity, and then five people going down the slide, symbolising the 1GB speed and capacity.

Each original video tagged #gigatownmtn and #gigavideo and between five to 15 seconds long will give Masterton 1000 points until February 27, when the competition ends.

Fibre optic cables have better capacity and speed than the copper cables traditionally used.

While speed is important, capacity also means more data can travel at once.

Chorus is rolling out UFB and all of Masterton is expected to have access to it by June 2016.

If the town wins Chorus' competition, residents will be able to access 1GB per second internet for the same price they pay now for "entry-level" 30 MB per second UFB.

Masterton came third in a previous Instagram competition which asked people to post pictures of what their home would look like if they had super speed internet, adding 25,000 points to its score. Wanaka is still leading the Gigatown race at 880,853 points followed by Masterton at 409,820. Visit the Gigatown Masterton Facebook page for more information.