Hi all,

An exciting bit of news from us today - we're trialling NZ's first 10Gbps connection. After being the first to launch residential UFB plans, Gig fibre, and unbundle UFB, this is another huge milestone. Here's the full release:

 

Orcon has hooked up two lucky customers to New Zealand’s fastest residential broadband connections, flicking the switch on a 10Gbps service in Auckland’s North Shore today.

 

Orcon boss Taryn Hamilton says that the race to 10 gigabit is well and truly on, with two customers connected to the Chorus 10Gbps trial today, and a consumer launch planned for this year.

 

“It’s been just over two years since we launched gigabit services, and we are getting ready to provide a service that’s up to ten times faster,” he says.

 

Hamilton says that when gigabit services were launched, many people said they were too fast for consumer’s needs – but now the Gig plan, marketed by Orcon as Gigantic*, accounts for more than a quarter of Orcon’s new sales.

 

“It’s important for us to bring innovation to Kiwis as soon as we can. We are about to connect our one hundred thousandth customer to the Ultra Fast Broadband network; we were the first to launch UFB to the home, the first to launch residential Gig internet, and now we are the first to trial 10Gbps connections for New Zealand home users.”

 

Hamilton fully expects the floodgates to open once plans are launched. “Gamers, movie buffs, internet aficionados, people with teenagers – we all appreciate a superfast connection and 10Gbps propels New Zealand’s internet into the future.

 

Tommy Hohaia, solutions consultant at Vocus and one of the triallists, says he’s really excited by the prospect of a 10Gbps connection.

 

“To be honest, working out what to do with a 10Gbps connection is pretty daunting. I’ve had to borrow a computer that’s even capable of handling the speeds. But, that said, I’ll try my best to put it through its paces.”

 

While 10Gbps might seem over the top, people said that about 1Gbps not long ago, and we are moving into an 8K TV world where lots of bandwidth is vital.

 

Few countries anywhere in the world can boast 10Gbps connectivity to the home; the nation with the fastest average fixed connection speeds is Singapore, at 197.5 megabits per second, according to Ookla.

 

“As more and more customers move to 10Gbps connections, we can expect New Zealand’s average speeds to go up considerably; we’re currently ranked 22nd in the world but that should quickly change,” notes Hamilton.

 

He says there is one obvious question for such astounding connectivity speeds: “Does anyone really need 10Gbps? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. With connectivity, more is more. Faster is better, the fastest is best. Especially if that speed doesn’t come with much of a price implication. We all use the internet every day in all kinds of ways and that’s only set to increase.”

 

Notes to editors:

 

The terms Gig and 10Gbps refer to the technology used to deliver the service. Due to the way the technology works customers will achieve most of those speeds, but not see 1Gbps or 10Gbps speeds in a real-world scenario.

 

* Orcon’s Gigantic plan is provided via Orcon’s Gigabit network. In reality, if you do a wired speed test, you should see 700-900Mbps down, and 500Mbps up. This variance on speed will depend on the speed test server location and capacity. We recommend you use linetest.nz using an Ethernet cable, connecting via a gigabit port on your laptop or PC.