Gigabit speed for cable broadband

Most Vodafone cable broadband customers in Wellington and Christchurch can upgrade their plans to get gigabit download speeds, following a $22 million network upgrade.

At $110 per month for unlimited data, Vodafone’s gigabit cable service provides customers in the two cities with a slightly cheaper alternative to getting gigabit broadband through the government-backed ultrafast broadband (UFB) network.

UFB gigabit plans retail from upwards of about $115 but more typically cost $130 to $140.

Gavin Male, chief executive of independent comparison service Broadband Compare, said the upgrade seemed designed to stop customers defecting from cable to UFB and would probably achieve that goal.

‘‘Putting myself in the consumer’s shoes, if I already have cable coming into my property and then I can get ‘gig’ speeds on it at a good price, you wouldn’t look to move.’’

UFB upload speeds should still be superior but that probably wouldn’t be enough to persuade many customers to shift network, he said.

Vodafone acquired its cable broadband networks – which it has rebranded FibreX – through its 2012 purchase of TelstraClear. The highest download speeds available had been 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

Vodafone consumer director Matt Williams said 70 per cent of customers could get the gigabit service now, and the remainder should have it as an option by the end of the year.

Internet providers, including Vodafone, have been able to sell gigabit plans on the UFB networks built in Wellington and Christchurch by Chorus and Enable since the start of the month.

FibreX is based on a technology popular in the United States and in Australian cities called hybrid fibre-coax (HFC). It is widely regarded as generally superior to standard copper broadband, but does not provide fibre-optic cabling all the way to the home.

It also supports cable television, including Vodafone’s ‘‘triple play’’ Sky TV cable bundle.

Chorus quotes an upload speed of ‘‘up to 500Mbps’’ for its UFB gigabit service.

Vodafone said that in ‘‘really good conditions’’ it would expect its gigabit FibreX plans to offer a real-world performance of 700-900Mbps down and 90-95Mbps up.

But Vodafone is promising that FibreX should be relatively painless to order, which has not always been the case with UFB.

An annual report from the Telecommunications Disputes Resolution scheme said this month that delays getting UFB had been a significant contributor to the 2619 complaints it had fielded from the public over the year to June.

Vodafone said if it couldn’t upgrade existing FibreX customers to its gigabit service within three days, it would give them a $100 credit.

"Putting myself in the consumer's shoes, if I already have cable coming into my property and then I can get 'gig' speeds on it at a good price, you wouldn't look to move." Gavin Male, Broadband Compare