'We have gained exceptional speeds'

Wicked Networks managing director Stewart Fleming tests the much sought-after 1GB connections....
Wicked Networks managing director Stewart Fleming tests the much sought-after 1GB connections. Photo by Gregor Richardson.

Gigabit speed is everything it is said to be and people will be surprised when they find out what they can do with ultra-fast broadband speed, Wicked Networks managing director Stewart Fleming says.

Mr Fleming, of Dunedin, stole a march on his competition on Friday by contacting network operator Chorus to gain access to the much sought-after 1GB for testing on his network.

Chorus is running a competition which will give the winning town access to the fastest internet in the southern hemisphere.

There were multiple towns from across New Zealand in the first round. Now, there are just five and Dunedin is one of them.

The others are Wanaka, Gisborne, Nelson and Timaru.

Mr Fleming said yesterday the residential 1GB trial met all the claims Chorus had made.

He had been testing since Friday on wireless, desktops, laptops and other devices and could verify the performance.

''The testing we have done is really promising. We have gained exceptional speeds.''

Those speeds included getting 300 megabits per second (Mbps) uploads to Sydney and more than 600Mbps on local connections.

Mr Fleming is planning a public demonstration of the capabilities of 1GB on October 31 to show in detail what can be available with such fast data.

The demonstration would be part of Wicked Networks' fifth birthday and be held at the Centre for Innovation, at the University of Otago.

He would soon be rolling out 1GB across the city and was confident it would work immediately for some of his clients; others would need to look at their wiring and cables. It was not a matter of ''simply plugging it in'' and starting.

At maximum speed, the 1GB download and 500Mbps upload speeds would be possible. Most people would not go anywhere close to those limits, Mr Fleming said.

''It's a big upgrade. You can't just switch on. I describe it as having a data centre in your house. You have to do a bit of work to get there.

''There has been a lot of talking this year but until you see it work on the ground - it will all become much clearer when you get your hands on it.''

The demonstration would be a useful process for a lot of people, Mr Fleming said.

Asked how he got ahead of his competition, Mr Fleming said he noticed a tweet on Twitter mentioning one of his competitors ordering the 1GB.

He contacted Chorus directly, changed one of his residential plans for the connection and got ahead of his competition.

''We also had the gear ready to go. We are agile and fast to respond and that's what we did.''

Mr Fleming had plenty of capacity and speed before getting access to 1GB so he was not really surprised by what he could do with the speed.

However, he was sure people who had suffered from poor broadband over the years would be amazed by the possible changes.

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