Hundreds of thousands of homes should see broadband speeds triple

Wednesday, 1 December 2021

Chorus offered to upgrade wholesale connections on its common 100Mbps plan in September, leaving the ball in the court of internet providers to agree the switch.

The country’s three largest internet providers – Spark, Vodafone and Orcon – have all now agreed to triple the speed of the country’s most-popular ultrafast broadband plan for free.

That is after agreeing to take up offers made to all internet providers by Chorus and other UFB network firms to enable that.

Chorus announced in September that it was willing to upgrade the connections of 600,000 homes and businesses from 100 megabit-per-second to 300Mbps at no extra charge – if internet providers wanted that for their customers.

The move was widely viewed as an attempt by Chorus to make UFB more appealing in comparison with fixed-wireless broadband plans that have been strongly marketed by Spark and Vodafone.

* Satisfaction with fixed-wireless broadband has dropped since 'demand challenge' of Covid-19, says Chorus

* Winners and losers as Chorus flattens UFB pricing differences

Broadband is offering “awesome” value in an economy in which inflation has become a stronger force, Vodafone says.

While it had been assumed smaller internet providers that didn’t have competing wireless networks would take up the upgrade offer, there had been some speculation as to how Spark and Vodafone would respond.

Vodafone spokeswoman Nicky Preston said it would start upgrading customers on its Fibre 100 plan to 300Mbps from today.

Customers on the Tuatahi First Fibre (previously known as Ultrafast Fibre) and Enable UFB networks in Waikato and Christchurch will benefit from a similar speed jump after those network providers also offered it.

But Vodafone and Spark said the upgrade was not available on Northpower’s network in Northland.

Spark says it has begun the free upgrade to 300Mbps.

The upload speeds on the upgraded 300Mbps download service will increase from 22Mbps to 100Mbps, Vodafone said.

Vodafone commercial director Joe Goddard said customers would be getting the improved service for free without them having to take any action.

“These are the most popular home fibre plans and, alongside the local fibre companies, we’ve essentially tripled speeds for the same price which must be a great deal in anyone’s books,” he said.

“While the cost of most goods is going up as inflation sets in, internet prices remain awesome value,” he added.

Spark spokeswoman Samantha Smith said it was also currently upgrading customers free-of-charge to the higher speeds.

Orcon, the country’s third-largest internet provider, says it will be automatically upgrading customers “in the coming weeks”.

The Commerce Commission meanwhile said on Wednesday that its latest report showed UFB connections performed “significantly better” than fixed-wireless or copper-based broadband during the recent period of Covid restrictions, when many people have been working from home.

Smith responded that there were differences in the way various technologies performed and each offered something different to the customer.

Preston said UFB was “great for people with access to it, and wireless broadband offers another modern connectivity option without the need for cabling – or in rural areas it’s sometimes the only option”.

The Commerce Commission has expressed concerns about the marketing of the different broadband technologies this year, with Telecommunications Commissioner Tristan Gilbertson making clear in April that he didn’t want to hear customers were being led to believe fixed-wireless was a substitute for UFB.