School holidays are changing the way Kiwis use broadband, according to Chorus.
New figures released by Chorus have shown the discrepancies in how much Kiwi homes are using the internet, and at what times.
The new data shows having kids at home during the school holidays produces an increase in broadband activity, with much more use during the day.
"When the kids are at school, there's a clear peak at 4pm when they come home, but when they're on holiday, you can see much more consistent use throughout the day. In fact the biggest difference is at 10am which is nearly 30% higher than when the kids are at school," explains Chorus network strategy manager, Kurt Rodgers.
"The figures shows a 36% increase in data consumption compared with January 2019 and in fact the total amount, 385 petabytes, is equivalent to over a hundred-million hours of streaming in HD quality," he says.
"However for those of us who fret about kids spending too much time online, we can clearly see that when the sun is out usage drops. It's good to know that kids still like to play outside too," Rodgers adds.
"But when it's raining, nobody needs grumpy kids complaining about slow internet, so I encourage those not yet connected fibre to contact their broadband provider and get their order in."
Rodgers says fibre is the obvious choice for those looking to upgrade their broadband.
"Nationwide independent testing by the Commerce Commission shows that it's faster, more reliable, more responsive, and more consistent than competing technologies," he explains.
"Not only that, if you shop around it can be cheaper too. With free residential installations continuing even more Kiwis can join the hundreds of thousands that are already enjoying the benefits of New Zealand's most popular broadband," Rodgers says.
Nationally, the average New Zealand home on fibre used 363GB of broadband data in December. As data usage continues to soar, improved higher capacity Wi-Fi 6 becomes mainstream and demand for gigabit plans rise, Rodgers says a robust fixed connection is set to become increasingly vital.
In 2019, Chorus connected more than 160,000 homes and businesses to fibre. Nearly three quarters of installations are today done within a single visit from a technician, making for much improved customer experience, the company says.
"Chorus encourages customers to visit our website to ensure they're on the best broadband available," Rodgers adds.
