Volunteers signing up to police broadband

An army of ordinary men and women have volunteered to keep broadband services providers honest.

Already 4000 people have put their hands up to have ‘‘white boxes’’ installed in their homes so the Commerce Commission can gather data on broadband speeds.

But a further 2000 volunteers are needed.

The Commerce Commission said its first report from its enhanced broadband monitoring programme revealed fibre broadband services were consistently delivering less than 75 per cent of the maximum speeds available.

The Measuring Broadband New Zealand Initial Findings Report, from independent testing partner SamKnows, used speed and internet performance data collected from volunteers from 758 households during the month of October, 2018.

‘‘The big finding from this report is that while fibre broadband is delivering much faster speeds than copper-based services, it is not yet performing at its peak. This is especially the case for the highest-speed fibre services, which consumers pay a premium price for,’’ telecommunications commissioner Stephen Gale said.

Gale thanked the volunteers whose in-home whiteboxes contributed to this first report, but called for more New Zealanders to join the internet speed monitoring force.

‘‘While we’ve had more than 4000 people sign up to be a volunteer, it’s a challenge to find the right mix of volunteers across technologies, plans, providers, and locations,’’ he said.

Fibre broadband is much faster than services delivered down copper wires, the first monitoring report showed, but broadband services were not yet being delivered at top speed.