More than one million premises in New Zealand, including households, businesses, schools, and hospitals, are now connected to the government’s Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) network.
“This means 2.4 million New Zealanders are now able to connect to UFB, which is an outstanding achievement this far into the build,” said Communications Minister Amy Adams as she released the latest quarterly report on the UFB and the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) programs.
The report noted that in the last quarter, approximately 240,000 users were connected to UFB, up 22.4% on last quarter. The uptake nationwide is at 23.9%, which covers 19 of 33 towns and cities.
“There are now more than 830 new households and businesses connected to fiber every working day – more than one every minute – as New Zealanders realize the benefits of the government’s investment in high-speed broadband,” Adams said.
“Internet connectivity has become an essential part of the day to day life, and access to faster broadband opens up opportunities across business, health, education and within the local community,” she added.
The first phase of the UFB program aims to connect 75% of New Zealanders with fiber to the premise by end 2019. The network is capable of peak speeds of at least 100Mbps.
Meanwhile, the government’s Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) has also been completed and now benefiting 300,000 homes and businesses.
The government has invested $300 million investment into the program to improve rural access to broadband connections.
Adams said prior to the RBI build, only 20% of rural lines were capable of speeds around 5Mbps. With the completion of the first phase of the project, this has been increased to 90% of rural New Zealand households and businesses, with speeds well in excess of the 5Mbps threshold.
The minister also reported that all New Zealand state and state-integrated schools are now able to connect under RBI or UFB, or the Remote Schools Broadband Initiative. Around 39 rural hospitals and integrated family, centers are able to access peak speeds of 100 Mbps under the RBI.