UFB customer uptake gains momentum

Photo / Bevan Conley

Telecom now has 6000 customers connected to ultra-fast broadband or waiting to get hooked up and said it had a record month of sales in November.

Last month the company signed up nearly 1300 customers, it said in a statement today.

"The recent sharp spike in Ultra Fibre sales clearly shows the growing appetite from Kiwi consumers for better, faster broadband. If anything, the recent national attention on the UFB rollout is increasing consumer awareness about what UFB can offer," Telecom retail chief executive Chris Quin said.

Telecom also revealed that its broadband customers, on average, used 34 gigabtyes of data in October, up 89 per cent on the same time last year.

The UFB scheme appears to be gaining a bit of momentum and internet retailer Slingshot is launching UFB plans this week.

Between July and September, 4264 customers were hooked up to the network UFB, increasing the number of users on the network by 42 per cent.

At the end of September, 14,000 households, businesses or organisations were on the UFB network - a tiny proportion of the 322,479 users who were able to connect.