New Zealand has climbed one place to 19th in the latest OECD broadband, or high-speed internet, rankings.
Fairfax Media
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development\’s
broadband statistics report, for the six months to December, shows New
Zealand 19th out of 30 countries. That is up from 20th in the previous
OECD half-year report. The figures are based on broadband subscribers
per 100 inhabitants.
According to Internet NZ, 18.3 out of every 100 Kiwis now have
broadband. This compares to the OECD country average of 20 and gives a
total of 757,132 broadband subscribers in New Zealand.
Internet NZ executive director Keith Davidson said today the
Government-enforced three way operational separation of Telecom had
both helped boost competition in the telecoms market and broadband
uptake. He said it was encouraging that New Zealand was the sixth
fastest growing OECD country in terms of broadband penetration with a
net increase of 4.37 subscribers per 100 people.
\”If New Zealand maintains this rate of growth then it will continue
to slowly improve its position relative to other OECD nations,\”
Davidson said.
However, to reach the top half of the OECD Davidson suggested
substantial investment in, and customer uptake of, an open access fibre
network was needed.
