By
March 02, 2021
We’re getting hungrier for bytes. 10 years ago, the average monthly usage per household in New Zealand was 10 gigabytes. Now it is over 300 gigabytes – a 30-fold increase. It’s been driven by things like high-definition TV, streaming, games, Zoom meetings, more people in the house using more devices online
And the recent Covid-19 lockdown has been a powerful reminder that New Zealand homes and businesses need an ultra fast fibre network that can evolve to satisfy our appetite for increasing numbers of devices and the data-hungry applications they use.
But how will we evolve as if we carry on at this rate, we'll need our broadband technology and networks to cope. Enter Hyperfibre.
Hyperfibre – broadband that’s 40 times faster
As the next generation of fibre technology on the Chorus fibre network, Hyperfibre offers lightning fast download and upload speeds of up to 4,000 mbps second. That’s around 40 times faster than New Zealand’s average fixed broadband connection.
This is achieved using our existing fibre network, so there’s no need to dig up roads. However, Chorus’ latest ONT boxes (optical network terminals), similar to the one you may have connected to your router at home, will help to vastly increase the line rate, which means far more data can be delivered to devices.
Hyperfibre is perfect for businesses who consume and create large amounts of data simultaneously. It will also be welcomed by those in data-hungry homes who want to explore the exciting possibilities that ultra-smooth, high-capacity and low-latency broadband offers. 2,000 and 4,000 mbps Hyperfibre plans are already being enjoyed by businesses and households where the roll out has begun. If you want to find out when it will be available in your area, you can register your interest here.
Gearing up for the future
The technology used by routers in most households – known as WiFi 5 – is fine but it can struggle as more devices fight for the same signal. This leads to the potential for slower speeds and interruptions as we become more reliant on the internet for data hungry tasks such as streaming, gaming and the growth of smart appliances and infrastructure in our cities.
The latest router technology, WiFi 6, is a game changer because it encodes data more efficiently, packs more data into the same radio wave, and then makes it easier for individual devices to receive the specific information they’ve requested. This means it doesn’t suffer from the same interference and speed issues as previous WiFi technologies. In fact, it’s so effective that the days of struggling for WiFi at busy bars, the airport or even sports stadiums will become a thing of the past.
It may be a while before internet service providers supply WiFi 6 routers with their broadband packages. However, they can be purchased from the high street or online, with prices starting from around $300. WiFi 6 enabled smartphones such as iPhone and Samsung are available, however, a WiFi 6 router will also increase the speed of many older devices.
So what happens when you combine WiFi 6 with Hyperfibre?
Short answer you get super fast broadband. How fast? Well put it this way, if you're blockbuster movie buff you'll be familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films such as Ironman, The Avengers etc. The entire MCU collection of 23 films consists of around 50 hours of blu-ray compression quality viewing and data wise you're talking about a whopping 1,650 gigabytes.
On New Zealand's average broadband speed that would take you about 33 hours to download.
Using WiFi 6 router and a 2,000 Mbps plan it would take you 2 hours to download.