So, Which Side Are You On?

 By Seuamuli Desmond Bentin

If you know me, and knew how selfish I am, really, you will know that I am always on the side that is winning. Or am I?

There is a current advertising campaign by a major telecommunications company here in Aotearoa New Zealand which states that fibre is “how we internet now”.

If you do not already have fibre to your house, you could easily find out if it is available in your neighbourhood by going on to the Chorus or any internet provider’s website, type in your address on the search bar, and it will tell you the residential broadband options available to your door, if any.

It will also tell you whether it is already installed and how long you might have to wait if it isn’t, how fast the option download and upload speeds are, and how much you may have to pay per month for each option depending on the service provider you choose.

The Chorus site also gives “Tips for the best home internet”, which I have copied here in case you are interested.

Find the right broadband provider

While on the surface, broadband providers offer similar plans at similar prices, there is a variation in the performance of different plans. Different service providers make different investment decisions about how they structure their network. The choices they make about backhaul, handover, routing and peering affect how their network performs and how fast your data travels from the local exchange or cabinet to the rest of the internet.

There are ways to find out which service providers do the best job. The Commerce Commission publishes speed and performance comparisons for copper, fibre and fixed wireless providers.

Head to the Commerce Commission website to read the latest Measuring Broadband New Zealand report, then find the best plan and deal for you at Glimp or Broadband Compare.

There are 91 New Zealand Broadband Providers on Broadband Compare.

I think we have two which I found on the internet.

Vodafone offers ‘Broadband’ and ‘Vodafone Fibre’ which is a bit confusing, but I think are their ‘Wireless’ and ‘Fibre’ Broadband services. Do we still have copper? I gave up on the Digicel ‘Home and Business Internet Plans’ chart because it basically did not look like it cared!

One thing both companies’ broadband services had in common was how extremely expensive their Broadband Plans are.

I tried to get something they had in common with the broadband service I have at home so that I could ‘compare apples with apples’ as they say at the Tahunanui Dog Beach, but Digicel does not have a fibre option, and they both do not have an ‘Unlimited’ data plan.

The closest I got was my Stuff Fibre 100 plan and a couple of lemons.

Here are some prices just for the hell of it. NZD = ST1.715 as of today.