Kiwis keener to take a byte

The availability of services such as  US-based Netflix are encouraging New Zealanders to use more...
The availability of services such as US-based Netflix are encouraging New Zealanders to use more data. Photo by Reuters.

New Zealanders are consuming more data and are getting used to faster speeds, Statistics New Zealand performance statistics manager Jason Attewell says.

A study released yesterday showed New Zealanders used 53% more internet data than they did a year ago.

''At a massive 53,000 terabytes, our data use is soaring to new heights.''

The amount of data used was equivalent to streaming more than 12 million high-definition super-hero movies, he said.

Also, nearly half of all broadband connections had data caps of 50 gigabytes or more.

Three years ago, only 4% had data caps that large.

Connections with no data limit increased 87% from 82,000 in 2013 to 155,000 in 2014, while those with smaller data caps continued to decrease.

Businesses had also started to increase their data caps.

In 2012, only 4% of business connections had large data access plans of 100GB or more.

The proportion had jumped to 30% this year.

Residential connections on those plans had also increased from 14% in 2012 to 21% this year, Mr Attewell said.

Fibre was synonymous with faster internet.

While copper connections still dominated the broadband market, fibre had jumped to 46,000 connections, three times what it was last year.

Although still only making up 1% of total connections, fibre had the fastest growth rate of all broadband connection types, he said.

If current growth were to continue, fibre connections would exceed digital subscriber line (DSL) connections - now at just more than 1.3 million - within five years.

The latest figures still put the number of fibre connections below the 2013 OECD average of 16.65% of total internet connections. However, the uptake was still significant, Mr Attewell said.

The figures did not include internet connections from mobile phones or the data they consumed. Those rose 16% to 3.7 million.

''That's a connected mobile phone for every four out of five Kiwis. Due to the large number of devices, apps and networks available, more people had access to a wider range of goods and services through the internet while on the go.''

Download and upload speeds continued to improve, he said. Although more than two-thirds of connections were still in the mid-range of eight to 24 megabits per second, the proportion of faster speed connections, above 24Mbps, had increased from 7% to 16%.

The biggest jump was in the 24Mbps to 50 Mbps category, Fibre and other ultra-fast options drove the smaller increases in the the 100-plus Mbps group, he said.

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