The company is responding to figures released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment which show that Tauranga has the most significant uptake of fibre of any major centre throughout the country.

UFF Chief Executive, William Hamilton, says the figures show Tauranga at 41 per cent fibre uptake which is ahead of all other major areas in New Zealand where a connection rate of around 33 per cent appears to be the norm.

“We are especially encouraged to see that level of uptake in Tauranga as we are now planning for further deployment of optic fibre in other Bay of Plenty towns of Ōmokoroa, Katikati and Te Puke,” he says.

Mr Hamilton says there is no doubt there has been a momentum shift in the last 18 months in regards to the demand for high speed broadband on the highly reliable and consistent fibre networks. “More and more people are now streaming video at home on multiple devices from the likes of Netflix and YouTube, increasingly in ultra-high definition, and when this happens the only satisfactory option is to have fibre connected.

“Obviously there is a lot more to fibre than just video streaming, and there are clear advantages for people wanting to work from home, or to be involved in businesses that require high speed data transfer. It is now becoming clear that Tauranga is leading the charge when it comes to taking advantage of the potential of fibre,” says Mr Hamilton.

Ultrafast Fibre (UFF) has completed deployment of a 3,000 kilometre fibre optic network to eight central North Island cities and towns under the first tranche of the UFB initiative. The current UFF network is available to more than 190,000 homes, businesses, schools, medical centres and hospitals. Across its whole central North Island network, he Hamilton-based company has already connected around 75,000 of those premises, as demand for next generation broadband continues to grow rapidly. “Having well in excess of 1 connection in every 3 customers who can access the best broadband available on our network is a really satisfying metric. But of course this means that around 120,000 customers are potentially missing out by not yet having connected to the best broadband available and I encourage those customers to take advantage of the currently free install.” Mr Hamilton added.

The company is now working on its next phase of optic fibre deployment which will see Omokoroa, Katikati and Te Puke connected, along with Ngāruawāhia, Huntly, Kihikihi, Raglan, Putāruru, Eltham, Inglewood, Stratford and Waitara.