Voyager slashes VDSL prices by 33%

Voyager Internet, one of the first providers in New Zealand to offer VDSL, has revealed some "significant" price reductions to the product.

The company says the offer now makes upgrading from standard ADSL Broadband a "no-brainer" for any business, because the pricing of both services is now almost exactly the same.

The next-generation of DSL broadband technology, VDSL is around 5x faster than ADSL for downloads, and 1 x faster for uploads than ADSL.

Reaching speeds of 70 Mbps downloads, and 10 Mbps uploads, Voyager says VDSL is significantly faster than the entry level plan on the governments UFB fibre network.

"While the Government's $1.5B UFB network is fantastic, and is going to change the way that Kiwi's access the internet and connect to the rest of the world, it is taking some time to roll out," says Seeby Woodhouse, CEO, Voyager.

"It will likely take until 2019 before 75% of NZ's population has access to the new UFB network.

"However - Voyager VDSL is available to around 65% of the homes and businesses in NZ right now, and can provide massive speed and productivity increases over conventional ADSL broadband."

Reducing the price of its entry level VDSL plan by 33% to just $50/mth + GST, Voyager is also including free connection and wiring for every customer to make it easy to upgrade to the service (customers will need a new VDSL modem to replace their ADSL modem).

"We have been trailing VDSL with businesses all over NZ for the last year and a half, and we have found that businesses experience significant productivity gains whilst using the product," Woodhouse says.

"Downloads are almost instant, and cost-savings by using VoIP and Cloud Services can be fully realised.

"We had one customer whose web-design business was almost crippled because they had several staff sharing an ADSL connection, and it was simply too slow.

"By moving to VDSL they were able to work as though every staff member had their own personal fibre connection, even though the business isn't due to get fibre for another two years."