So how fast is ultra-fast broadband?

First Wanganui Ultra-Fast Broadband organisations could be connected towards the end of the year.

Official deployment for the $1.5 billion Ulltra-Fast Broadband (UFB) rollout began in Hamilton on July 14, and is soon to begin in Wanganui.

Jack Ninnes, spokesman for the fibre installers, said it was expected the new fibre network in Wanganui will be ready to connect its first customers towards the end of this year.

Priority users in the network should be connected within two years.

A new website - www.ultrafastbroadband.co.nz - details the areas to be included in the Wanganui UFB network. The website also enables organisations and citizens to prepare for UFB by checking their current internet speed.

The dramatic change that UFB will deliver can be demonstrated on the website by comparing the times it takes to download different file sizes. One example demonstrated is the time required to download a typical instruction video of 600MB (mega bytes), which takes 48 seconds with UFB, 23 mins with current broadband, and 23 hours with dial up.

The substantially faster internet speeds UFB delivers can be seen from the following comparison:

UFB - 100Mbps (mega bits per second)

Average NZ retail broadband - 3.4Mbps

Dial Up - 56Kbps (kilo bits per second)

A "bit" is binary 0 or 1, an alphabet letter or a number is composed of 8 bits (1 byte), kilo is 1000 and mega is 1 million.

The www.ultrafastbroadband.co.nz website also highlights details of the potential uses of UFB in the following sectors:

Health

Tele-health technologies which allow better patient monitoring, and patients to self-monitor their health in the home with appropriate medical oversight.

Rapid electronic transfer of advanced medical images (teleradiology, telepathology etc) - including to world respected experts overseas.

Schools

An online portfolio for students providing teaching and evaluation resources, test results and discussion forums

Administration related services delivered via the "cloud" e.g. school accountancy packages

Businesses

High Definition Video Conferencing across multiple sites and multiple enterprises

Collaboration across multiple sites and multiple enterprises with improved information sharing, chat/instant messaging, presence, location services etc

Significantly increased productivity from internet-dependent staff members.

Home

Video conferencing (home-to-home)

Home Wide Area Network - allowing multiple homes (for example across an extended family) to easily store, access and share large amounts of information such as video or photos

Make high-definition video phone calls over PCs, laptops, mobile devices and televisions with Skype and other VoIP (Voice over internet Protocol) programmes

- Article contributed by the Chamber of Commerce UFB Business Strategy Group. To find out more, or to contact the group, drop an email to john.patty@xtra.co.nz