New Zealand is "performing well above its international competitors" within the OECD, the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum (TCF) has boasted in a report released today.
The report summarises how the country's telecommunications sector is performing within the OECD, and its contribution towards New Zealand's development, stating it’s the right time to put to rest any "misconceptions about the industry".
The sector currently receives $1.7 billion in investment per annum, the second highest out of all OECD countries.
The results of this investment can be seen in the increase of fibre-optic broadband connections in New Zealand -- a 250 percent increase in total connections in 2014, the highest in the OECD.
The report also says New Zealand has one of the fastest 4G mobile download speeds globally.
Meanwhile, mobile service prices had a 46 percent decrease between 2012 and 2014 -- the second largest price decline in the OECD.
Nearly half-a-million customers moved from capped to uncapped broadband connections in the last year -- from 8 percent to 33 percent, with New Zealand households now consuming twice the amount of data as they did 12 months ago.
TCF chief executive Geoff Thorn says the demand is immense, with Kiwis expecting "fast, ubiquitous connectivity to get on with our digitally-connected lives, the same way we expect running water and power."
To deal with this increased pressure on network infrastructure, the report says telecommunications companies "must wrestle with sizing their investments to ensure networks provide improved, quality services."
The report shows a change in data-use behaviour, saying New Zealanders subscribe to new services more enthusiastically than in other countries, with a rapid increase in the use of internet banking, social networking and the selling of goods and services online.
The report makes sure to emphasise government initiatives of rural ultra-fast broadband are well underway.
The Government has recently stated its goal for 99 percent of New Zealanders to have access to broadband speeds of 50 MBPS by 2025.
Newshub.
