Home gets turbo charged internet

The first residential recipient of a Chorus' government-subsidised Ultra Fast Fibre (UFB) connection is real estate agent Simon Tremain.

His Westshore home was switched from copper to fibre yesterday by Hawke's Bay telecommunications company NOW (formerly Airnet).

Mr Tremain is no stranger to fibre, using it extensively in his business.

Westshore, Onekawa Industrial area, Pandora and Napier's Hospital Hill are the first areas to be go live.

NOW CEO Hamish White said broadband frustrations were over.

"Downloading and streaming music and movies will now be much quicker and the service will make other cloud-based services, including gaming, so much more usable.

"This is timely given the imminent arrival of online streaming content services, like QuickFlix and NetFlix.

"In the coming 12 months we are progressively offering fibre to people in Central Napier, Napier South and the Marine Parade. This will extend to parts of central Hastings and the Camberley Area."

NOW are offering introductory deals including free standard installations for residential customers until the end of the year.

The Government's UFB scheme will offer 75 per cent of New Zealanders download speeds of at least 100MB/sec by the end of 2019.

Hospitals, schools and businesses are first in line to be hooked up followed by affluent areas which were seen as more likely to use the service initially.

Over the 8 year rollout about 25,000km of fibre will be laid around the country, enabling connections to 1.1 million homes.

UnisonFibre is building 140km fibre loop through Hastings, Napier and Havelock North.