Fastest Broadband in New Zealand

For most people, a standard 300/100Mbps fibre connection is fast enough for most online activities. But if your household is data hungry and regularly runs multiple devices to stream HD video or play online games, you might need to take your internet speed to the max. Canstar Blue takes a look at the fastest broadband plans in New Zealand.

In this article we cover:

• Fibre or Fibre Max: What speed do I need?
• Fastest broadband plans in New Zealand
• Hyperfibre: the fastest broadband plans

Fibre or Fibre Max: What speed do I need?

The average user in NZ has a choice of two types of fibre broadband plans:

• Standard Fibre (Fibre 300)
• Fibre Max (or an alternatively named equivalent)

Standard fibre plans offer (approx) 300Mbps download and 100Mbps upload speeds, which is fine for the average family’s needs: streaming, surfing the internet and playing video games online.

Here are the Mbps speeds required for some common data-intensive internet services:

• Video streaming – Netflix recommends a download speed of 3Mbps per stream for playing SD-quality TV shows and movies, 5Mbps for HD and 25Mbps for UHD
• Gaming – Microsoft advises via its Xbox website that minimum download/upload speeds of 3/0.5Mbps are recommended for Xbox One online gaming
• Video calling – Skype recommends that HD video calling download/upload speeds are 1.5/1.5Mbps

For most homes, Standard Fibre will be more than adequate. According to the Commerce Commission’s latest Measuring Broadband New Zealand Report, when using Fibre 300, over 99% of homes can handle four simultaneous Netflix 4K streams without a wobble.

However, it’s worth keeping in mind the cumulative impact of multiple devices using the same broadband service, as data requirements can soon add up. So if you live in a home with data-hungry users, or you’re a serious online gamer, you might need a Fibre Max plan.

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Fastest broadband plans in New Zealand

Measuring broadband speeds

Below are the average speeds of Fibre Max plans across several of New Zealand’s largest internet providers, as sourced from the Commerce Commission’s report, which records average data speeds in Kiwi homes. As you can see, the actual speeds experienced are in keeping with those advertised:

Note: the average upload speed across all Fibre Max plans is 500Mbps

Hyperfibre: The fastest broadband plans

While Fibre Max is super fast, it’s not the fastest internet service available. That’s Hyperfibre, which is available from 2degrees in certain areas of the country. 2degrees plans offer speeds of up to 4000mbps, but Hyperfibre can go all the way up to 8000mbps.

However, while Hyperfibre sounds great, it’s complete overkill for most residential homes. Unless you’re a business that is regularly transferring huge amounts of data, Hyperfibre isn’t a must-have. It also requires extra installation and hardware.

Compare Broadband with Canstar Blue

To help you get a clearer picture of broadband providers in NZ, Canstar Blue rates all the big providers annually. We survey thousands of broadband customers and ask them to score their providers across categories including Overall Satisfaction, Value for Money and Customer Service. We then award the best broadband providers our Star Ratings and Most Satisfied Customer Award.

See Our Ratings Methodology

The table above is an abridged version of our full research, to find out more about NZ’s best-rated broadband providers, click on the button below.

Compare broadband providers for free with Canstar!

About the author of this page

This report was written by Canstar Content Producer, Caitlin Bingham. Caitlin is an experienced writer whose passion for creativity led her to study communication and journalism. She began her career freelancing as a content writer, before joining the Canstar team.