Most connections are at full line speed, and although monthly data transfer caps used to be common, most plans are now unlimited.
Chorus has implemented a fibre-to-the-node (also known as "cabinetisation") project to bring the equipment closer to the user, so 91% of the population is able to access a DSL connection of 10 Mbit/s or more.
[13] Fibre to the home was rolled out to urban areas of the country via the Ultra-Fast Broadband scheme, starting in 2014, and ending in December 2022.
The project was completed in December 2022, bringing high-speed fibre broadband to 412 towns and cities, with an uptake level of 73%.
[18][19] One NZ has a DOCSIS 3.1 hybrid fibre-coaxial network covering parts of Kapiti, 85% of Wellington and almost two-thirds of Christchurch, a total of 145,000 homes.
Spark began moving low usage customers off copper connections onto the fixed wireless service in 2017.
[40][41] In April 2017, Spark NZ announced plans to replace all Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) exchanges with new IP equipment within 5 years.
The Government is spending NZ$1.35 billion on public-private partnerships with Chorus and three local electricity network companies to roll out fibre-to-the-home connection in all main towns and cities with population over 10,000.
[50] Chorus will also be upgrading or installing 1215 new cabinets to increase GPON, VDSL and ADSL coverage to 100,969 lines.
[45] In August 2017 Crown Infrastructure Holdings entered into contracts with the Rural Connectivity Group and with a number of Wireless Internet Service Providers to deliver the RBI2/MBSF programme.
In the mid-1980s, with the advent of the Post Office's X-25 based packet switching network, and a degree of de-regulation, it became possible to link the various institutions together at a cost.
Due to the efforts of John Houlker, New Zealand's first international internet connection was established in 1989 from Waikato University through IBM.
Unlike free ISPs overseas, these did not rely on advertising or e-commerce revenue, but instead were funded by interconnection charges.
[62] In 1996, Telecom NZ and Clear Communications (until then only a toll-bypass provider) signed an interconnection agreement, where each would pay the other 2 cents/minute to terminate "local" calls, reducing to 1 cent/minute over several years.
The first was Compass Communications, which set up Freenet in February 2000, followed quickly by i4free (by CallPlus), surf4nix, Zfree (by Clear itself), and Splurge (by Quicksilver).
[62] The result was that Telecom wound up paying interconnection fees to Clear totalling tens of millions of NZ dollars.
[62] Within a few months Telecom remedied the situation by fiat: they declared that "internet calls" were not "local", and although they would still be free to the customer, they would no longer attract interconnection fees.
[66] In April 2006, Telecom New Zealand introduced new cheaper services with download speeds up to 3.5 Mbit/s, some thought this was to avoid regulatory local loop unbundling.
On the whole, Telecom's upstream speeds (128 kbit/s) and data caps had resulted in New Zealand's internet connections being ranked unfavourably compared to other countries in the OECD.
Competitors and customers reported slower than expected speeds,[68] with one ISP director criticizing Telecom's backhaul network.
In May 2006, the government announced a comprehensive telecommunications package including unbundling of the local loop to allow other ISPs to compete more effectively against Telecom's DSL offerings.
Additionally, there was also an unlimited download plan, which was also uncapped, however 128 kb upload, and a fair usage policy which is put in place to temporarily limit the speeds for customers who have high usage or make use of peer-to-peer connections via traffic shaping – basically limiting a so-called "unlimited" plan.
The government mandated local loop unbundling in 2006, thus allowing other ISPs to set up their own infrastructure and services, and using only Telecom's existing copper wiring and exchanges.
Then Telecommunications Minister David Cunliffe expected that the market would feel the effects from 2007 to 2009, with policy to be enacted commencing at the Budget in May 2006.
As a part of the policy, the Government was to take steps to encourage private sector investment in improving rural telecommunications services, and to further open up the marketplace to alternative delivery media, such as fibre optics, cable and satellite.
TelstraClear invested heavily in infrastructure throughout New Zealand by laying fibre networks in areas in Wellington, Nelson, and Christchurch.
[73] In June 2013, Google started testing Project Loon in Canterbury, a plan to provide internet services via large helium balloons around the globe.
[75] In July 2015, Woosh sold its customers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to Slingshot (owned by Australian company M2), leaving only its operation in Southland.
[79][80] Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) was set up in 2006 to link universities and Crown Research Institutes within New Zealand via fibre-optic cable, with links to Sydney and Los Angeles via the Southern Cross Cable, at speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second (or 1 gigabit per second to Los Angeles and Sydney).
Most of New Zealand's current international connectivity is provided by three under-sea fibre optic cables with a combined total throughput of 73 terabits per second.