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Insight Prysmian Magazine

New Zealand speeds up ultra-fast broadband rollout

At the end of 2019, the first phase of New Zealand’s Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB) rollout plan was concluded. Today, 75% of the vast country’s population has ultra fast broadband access. By the end of 2022, this percentage is expected to reach 87%. The second phase of the roll out - UFB2 - is focusing on extending this connectivity to smaller and more remote communities.

New Zealand’s National Government has recently pledged an additional $270m to speed up ultra-fast broadband rollout, which should bring completion of the UFB project forward by two years. $130m will be invested in extending ultra-fast broadband to 60,000 households and businesses to complete the network. The remaining $140m / €128m will extend rural coverage and provide mobile coverage along 1,000 kilometres of rural highways.

“The investment will help reach 190 more small towns and extend broadband to 74,000 additional rural homes and businesses,” states Communications Minister Simon Bridges. “By the end of 2022, our ultra-fast broadband programme will provide more than four million New Zealanders with access to world-class internet. By 2022, 87% of New Zealanders will have access to Ultra-fast Broadband and 99% will have access to high speed internet.”

Simon Bridges

Communications Minister, New Zealand

The rural broadband initiative phase two (RBI2) programme targets areas not covered by the UFB program. The aim is to provide rural households and businesses with minimum 20 Mb/s download speeds. The RBI2 is receiving the equivalent of $90m / €82m in funding and should provide broadband for New Zealand's rural population by the end of 2021. The government is investing an additional $9m / €8m into upgrading rural network capacity to help remote communities recover from the effects of COVID-19. As part of the country’s RBI and MBSF (Mobile Black Spot Fund) programmes, 450 new towers will be added to 150 that have already been built.

Today, New Zealand has the second highest fibre adoption rate in the world at 56%, second only to Japan. The Recently, Speedtest.net owner and operator Ookla ranked New Zealand’s 70.32 Mb/s average fixed broadband upload 23rd in the world. Average download speed is also relatively high, at 110.72 Mb/s. Average mobile upload speed ranks 13th worldwide at 14.49 Mb/s.