Broadband gathering speed

The number of New Zealanders with broadband connections continues to rise, but not at a rate or at speeds the Government is happy with.

The Commerce Commission, which monitors broadband uptake, said that at the end of July, Telecom had 205,927 residential customers of 256 kilobyte-per-second links or better, up 50,000 on the previous quarter.

A further 30,283 homes bought Telecom ADSL services through a wholesaler.

That presents a problem for Telecom - by the end of the year the Government wants to see wholesale account for more than a third of connections.

Broadband is regarded as superior to dial-up because data can be exchanged at higher speeds, theoretically allowing for applications such as streaming video and music. It also frees up the phone line.

A new survey by auction site Trademe gives a good picture of the New Zealand Internet.

More than 11,000 members responded to the survey, which was conducted during July. About half were Xtra customers; TelstraClear, Clear and Paradise users made up another 20 per cent; 10 per cent used iHug; and Slingshot and Orcon accounted for about 7 per cent each.

It found 41 per cent of respondents had ADSL connections, that is broadband over existing copper lines, compared with 40 per cent still on dial-up connections.

Some 4 per cent were on a cable service, mostly available through TelstraClear's Paradise service, and 5 per cent accessed the internet on Wireless links. The rest connected from work, which could be any of those types.

Inspire Net rated highest for reliability and customer support, with Quicksilver, MacNet, Actrix and Orcon also rating highly in those categories.

Xtra/Telecom, Woosh and Kiwi Online were bottom of the table for reliability, but Kiwi Online, a $9.95 dial-up service, was rated top for value for money by its customers.

Xtra/Telecom was rated bottom in the value-for-money stakes, with Paradise, Woosh and iHug also getting the thumbs down from customers.