Who is NZ's fastest ISP?

Snap has been officially rated the fastest performing Internet Service Provider in New Zealand, according to a newly released report from the Netflix index.

Now under the umbrella of 2degrees, the Christchurch-based company topped the list with an average speed of 3.77 Mbps, ahead of Vodafone New Zealand and Orcon with 3.76 Mbps and 3.55 Mbps respectively.

Measuring the speeds of cable, fibre, DSL, wireless and satellite, the Netflix index shows New Zealand as the 14th fastest country out of 29 monitored and when looking at individual ISP rankings, the Kiwi ISPs with the highest ratio of VDSL and fibre customers higher up the list, while those with more rural and ADSL customers are lower down the list.

Further down the list is Bigpipe, CallPlus at Trustpower, operating at speeds of 3.45 Mbps, 3.39 Mbps and 3.20 Mbps respectively, while Hosting Direct came in at seventh place with speeds of 2.80 Mbps, propped up only be Spark at 2.39 Mbps.

“This is what we would have expected to see,” says Adrian Dick, Chief Technology Officer, CallPlus.

“What’s worth noting is that the ISPs with more customers on Unlimited plans have performed better, as people with capped plans may see speeds drop once they reach their cap.

“It's great to see New Zealand 14th in the global index – and is testament to the country’s solid broadband infrastructure, local caching of Netflix content, and the number of people on fibre.”

What's more, Dick believes New Zealand's ranking is likely to improve in coming months as more Kiwis take up Fibre, as CallPlus predicts more people will move to unlimited plans in order to get the most out of Netflix and other streaming services.

Dick says the CallPlus network, which includes Slingshot, Orcon and Flip, is seeing customers streaming 4K (the highest TV resolution available) at 20Mbps – something that is very achievable on fibre and some VDSL connections.

“Also interesting in New Zealand and Australia was the almost instant popularity of Netflix,” he observes.

“Kiwis have taken to the service in droves since the New Zealand launch, with Netflix traffic accounting for between 15 and 20% of all traffic on the CallPlus Network already.

“Fortunately, Kiwi ISPs and Netflix were prepared for the high level of interest - something that didn't happen in Australia, where they saw performance issues due to demand."