Speed was cited as an important factor in choosing a plan, but almost half of the people surveyed said they did not know what speed they were on.<\/p>\n
Male said, for most people, a reliable 100Mbps (megabits per second) fibre connection was enough to stream, work from home, shop, video-call family and manage bills online.<\/p>\n
A 100Mbps fibre connection might cost about $35 less a month than a 500Mbps plan, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of talk about you need the fastest connectivity, you need to be on gigabit plans and all of this stuff, but really, when fibre originally launched in the country, the 100Mbps speed was the top speed that everyone had and everyone was amazed at what that could do. A lot of people\u2019s usage hasn\u2019t really changed that much in the last two to three years that you now need 10 times that speed.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy own household, for example, with teenage children, we sit there on 100Mbps speed and we can stream on four, five devices at the same time. It\u2019s more than enough for most households.\u201d<\/p>\n
Telecommunications Forum chief executive Paul Brislen agreed it was important to get a connection speed that matched the way a household used the internet.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake a two-person household \u2013 my in-laws. They have one television, two phones and a tablet between them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not going to need the same speed as my two-person household, where we have two televisions, laptops, tablets, e-readers, I work from home and like to play games, and the kids come home and want to watch all the content.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, assess your needs and adjust accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Consumer product test writer Nick Gelling said choosing the right plan could be challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost households likely do have a faster connection than they need, but that isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s better to have too much bandwidth than not enough and plans tend to not be granular enough to match your needs perfectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn June 2025, Chorus \u2013 the wholesaler that operates most of the fibre network \u2013 increased the speed of its two most popular fibre plans for no extra cost, so if the plan below yours is now more capable than it was when you signed up, it could be worth moving down a level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brislen said the best thing to do was shop around every 12 months and see what was available.<\/p>\n
\u201cTelcos are always trying to attract customers away from each other and I encourage that, but I think, if you see an offer from a competitor, you could very easily get the same offer from your current provider by letting them know you\u2019ve seen it. I\u2019ve done that a few times \u2013 not just with telco, but with all kinds of services \u2013 and it often works well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Male agreed shopping around was important. He said a level of apathy stopped people from looking for better options.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t seem to understand that, in particular, once you\u2019ve got fibre already installed, you don\u2019t have to go through that whole process that they\u2019ve had in the past, where they had to literally install the actual hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, once it\u2019s in, it\u2019s very much like switching your power provider. It\u2019s just easy to jump from one to the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cSwitching and shopping around is the best way to get a competitive price. A quick comparison check can deliver savings of up to $400 to 500 a year.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said providers generally reserved their best deals for new customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about acquiring [those] customers, because they know, as a general rule, Kiwis are very loyal. Once they are in with someone, they don\u2019t churn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll give a great deal to get someone in the door, because once they\u2019ve got them, they\u2019ll sneak the price up. That\u2019s been happening for years \u2013 the odd $5 price rise here and there.<\/p>\n
\u201cA $5 increase every month is $60 a year and, if you do that every year, it soon adds up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In June 2025, Chorus increased the speed of its two most popular fibre plans for no extra cost. Photo \/ RNZ<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Commerce Commission telecommunications commissioner Tristan Gilbertson said consumers may struggle to understand what they could be paying, because offers in the market were complex.<\/p>\n
The commission issued guidelines that required providers to state a monthly average price, when that was different from an advertised price, and make standardised offer summaries available.<\/p>\n
It was also looking at early-termination fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly-termination fees are a recurring pain point for consumers, either because they didn\u2019t realise they signed up to them or because it\u2019s not clear what the exit costs are, when a better deal comes along,\u201d Gilbertson said.<\/p>\n
The guidelines require early-termination fees to be prominently disclosed upfront to consumers and reduce over the period of the contract. Providers must also ensure their customers can easily find out how much is left to pay at any point in time.<\/p>\n
\u2013 RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speed was cited as an important factor in choosing a plan, but almost half of the people surveyed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113651,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3896,138,81042,813,2082,29012,5829,5969,111,139,69,17096,812,6173,8218],"class_list":["post-113650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-broadband","tag-business","tag-compare","tag-edmunds","tag-for","tag-households","tag-many","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-paying","tag-susan","tag-too","tag-warns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}