Kate McKenzie (Chorus)
Chorus is planning to reduce the wholesale price of its gigabit broadband services to encourage uptake.
From the middle of next year, the wholesale price for the residential gigabit service will drop from $65 a month to $60, with a further reduction to $56 in mid-2020, the company has revealed.
As more New Zealanders connect to fibre, consumers are moving away from entry-level plans towards higher specification plans to ensure they get the very best experience, Chorus said.
“The demand for fibre broadband has been rapidly increasing and even more so now as more content moves online and New Zealanders prepare to live stream the Rugby World Cup and other sporting events in 2019,” Chorus CEO Kate McKenzie said.
New Zealanders are downloading, streaming high-definition TV and gaming at a huge rate and the likely impact of online TV will continue to be felt in peak network traffic growth, she said.
"As more content becomes available online, new devices are released to watch it on with higher video resolutions such as 4K, and soon 8K," she added.
“What these numbers are overwhelmingly telling us is that as a nation our average data use is growing fast, and it will continue to grow faster in the coming years so being on the best available fibre connection is vital."
Chorus also announced the number of Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) connections on its network has reached 500,000.
Demand for fibre has been strong for some time, however, during recent months its has surged, the company said.
Meanwhile, 100,000 premises have been connected to Chorus fibre in the last six months, Chorus said. By comparison, it took five years to connect the first 100,000 customers to fibre.
Last month, the government inked a deal with Chorus to reduce the price cap on the company's basic "anchor" UFB product.
