20 more Northland spots in Chorus' broadband extension

Twenty Northland locations have been included in the extension of Chorus' Ultra-Fast broadband programme.

In August the company announced it would extend its UFB rollout to about 60,000 more customers beyond the around 1.3 million customers in its existing planned UFB1 and 2 rollout areas.

The programme, called UFB2+ will bring UFB to: Awanui, Baylys Beach, Hihi, Langs Beach, Matapouri, Maungakaramea, Maungatapere, Ngunguru, Ohaewai, Okiato, Opononi, Portland, Pukenui, Rangitana, Rawene, Taipa, Te Kopuru, Waipapa, Waipu Cove and Tokerau - Whatuwhiwhi.

Chorus general manager network and field management Ed Beattie said: "At this stage we are still working on the exact build schedule so have yet to confirm timings for UFB2+ but we will be back in touch with the respective communities to share these as soon we have them set."

Maps of the areas within the towns will be available online before the end of the year, once the times have been confirmed.

Chorus is building the fibre network to more than 1.3 million homes, businesses, schools and medical centres across NZ.

The latest figures show that the first stage of the UFB build is 70 per cent complete, with about 780,000 premises now able to connect to fibre.

On average NZ households are consuming 162GB of data per month, an increase on the 13GB used in 2011.

He said ever-increasing data demands and evolutions such as 4K television and virtual reality, would continue to fuel demand for bandwidth and they are forecasting average monthly data usage of 680GB per household by 2020.