Survey shows NZ Internet users starved of data

Stuart Corner
Monday, 17 October 2011 16:04

Your IT - Home IT

While most Australians now enjoy fixed line Internet access plans with several hundred gigabytes of data, in New Zealand over two thirds have less than 20GB per month, and less than 30,000 of almost 1.5m broadband users have data caps in excess of 50GB.

The average subscriber consumed 9GB per month. And Kiwis do not do very well for 'quota free; content either: just 0.8GB per month on average.

The figures come from Statistics New Zealand's annual Internet survey. It shows that the total number of broadband subscribers increased by 14 percent, to almost 1.5 million between June 2010 and June 2011.

The issue of New Zealand's low data usage was raised by InternetNZ in August, when it published a discussion paper on 'Barriers to Unmetered Domestic Internet Traffic'.

Commenting on release of the paper, InternetNZ CEO, Vikram Kumar said: "It is clear that New Zealand's very low data caps are a result of a number of factors. These range from market failure, lack of concerted consumer pressure and fears of consumer confusion. The recent increase in fixed-line broadband data caps by Telecom and Vodafone only underline how much room there is for the major ISPs to move on this issue."

The paper suggested: "The incumbency of Telecom NZ in the copper local loop market and the reliance on a single submarine cable for almost all international transit," as two possible reasons for the high prices and low data caps.

It added: "The price paid by ISPs for international transit has been dropping significantly; therefore if data caps do not greatly increase as they have in Australia recently it is likely to be incumbency around the copper loop which is keeping them low."

The survey did show data quotas increasing significantly: the number of subscribers on 20-50GB plans was up 136 percent on the previous year to 410k; 5-20GB up 43 percent to 717k and sub 5GB down 40 percent to 313k.

The Statistics NZ survey also reported that the number of cellular, cable, and satellite connections had increased almost 50 percent since June 2010, but DSL remained the most popular access technology, with over one million connections at 30 June 2011. In the three months prior to 30 June 2011, 1.9 million New Zealanders had active Internet subscriptions via a mobile phone.

The survey round that, at 30 June 2011, 30 percent of ISPs already had IPv6 available to subscribers, 45 percent intended to have it available within two years and a further 10 percent within four years. However 15 percent of ISPs said they had no plans to support IPV6 Forty-three percent of ISPs that have yet to support IPv6 cited lack of user demand as the main barrier to installing it, followed by a lack of resources, and other business needs taking priority.

Those ISPs that monitor their customers for malware and other security issues, reported four percent of subscribers as showing evidence of compromised security.