Thinking about immigrating to NZ....think twice. The country has the worst telecommunications infrastructure. Internet connections are slow, expensive, and come with low download limits. Some of you are accustomed to no limits on download. There are several problems:
1. Lack of competition on fibre leaving the country - that will change in the next few years
2. Local nodes - all owned by Telecom NZ - which I guess in a static growth market is holding out for new technology.
The result is that people are having to wait up to 2 years for a broadband landline connection, and are otherwise restricted to 4Gb per month download limits for a mobile broadband service, which is severely restrictive in where you can access it.
Matters are better and worse in rural areas. You will have to pay $49/mth for a telephone rental service, even if you are only using data. You will have more chance of getting a broadband connection though, because fewer people are using them.
If this is enough for you to look elsewhere, and you are looking for a similar place on Earth, you might want to consider Tasmania (Australia). It has the fastest broadband in Australia, with speeds of 100Mbps for the whole island, though it is a small island....so much like one island of NZ, but at least it is stitched on to the mainland, and Melbourne for access to a major city and airport. Don't expect a subsea tunnel however, its a 120km wide trip.
In defence of NZ...I have used both the Telecom and Vodafone services and they are both similarly priced and reliable. Telecom at our purchase point was better because we did not have to commit to a contract. I think that is why Vodafone started losing market share.
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