Kiwis paying through the roof for residential broadband

Kiwis are paying some of the highest prices for entry level residential broadband, according to a report from UK market research firm Point Topic.

New Zealand was ranked dismal 77th out of 85 countries surveyed in Q4 2014, one place behind Australia.

The Broadband Tariff Country Scorecard compares entry level and average monthly tariffs for residential broadband services and includes services offered over copper, cable and fibre networks in Q4 2014.

Poland topped the list with the lowest entry level tariff, followed by India, Vietnam and Japan.

And those countries with higher entry level pricing than ours?  Thailand, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Jordan, Kenya, Qatar and Argentina.

The news was considerably better when Point Topic looked at average tariffs per country for residential services, with New Zealand managing 32nd. Australia trailed at 40th.

Japan led the way for average tariffs, with Libya in second position, followed by the Ukraine and Russia.

The scorecard was based on a pool of 2674 residential broadband services from 279 operators in 85 countries.

Point Topic also released its business broadband tariff benchmarks, saying there was minimal movement in the cost of business broadband services between quarters, globally. The average bandwidth provided by business broadband services stood at 47Mbps, up from 46Mnps the previous quarter. Average global cost per megabit for December 2014 was US$4.10.

Europe and the Americas had the lowest business broadband tariffs, while Asia Pacific offers the fastest broadband services to businesses – but at a higher cost.