Broadband use hits all-time high as we creep towards the ceiling

New Zealand’s broadband use has peaked at another all-time high of 3.20 terabits per second.

Network operator Chorus says it clocked the new benchmark on Friday. It was something of an actionpacked day as the morning’s tsunami threat washed into a crucial lockdown decision in the afternoon and the New Zealand vs Australia T20 cricket match in the evening, which could only be viewed via streaming on Spark Sport.

The previous record of 3.15 terabits per second was hit during the August lockdown last year.

That was almost broken last week as Chorus registered its secondhighest ever peak of 3.10 tbps amid the triple-whammy of the fourth Auckland lockdown, a patch update to the popular video game Call of Duty and seat-smashing cricket on Spark Sport.

Chorus says its network can handle 3.5 tbps. Chorus — fending off new competition from wireless broadband — has plans to open the taps.

At the company’s recent interim result, chief executive JB Rousselot said the maximum speed broadband plan today — the 4 gigabit per second iteration of Hyperfibre should be available in an 8 gigabit per second flavour by the end of this year.

Chorus was testing a 25 gigabit per second plan, he said.

Before the pandemic hit, Chorus’ all-time record was the 2.6 tbps hit during the 2019 Rugby World Cup. That event saw some hiccups for Spark Sport.

On Friday night, as the new record was hit, no major issues were reported.

The average household is now using around 500 gigabytes of data per month Chorus says, or about five times as much as 2016 as streaming goes mainstream. Some 80 per cent are now on uncapped plans.