
Telecommunication in New Zealand
The development of telecommunications in New Zealand is roughly equivalent to the United States. Under the country code +64, there were a total of 6.50 million connections in 2021. Among them were 5.85 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 1.1 per person. In the US, this figure is 1.1 mobile phones per person.With about 3.03 million webhosts, New Zealand is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 104,397 of these, or about 3 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: New Zealand
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 134.19 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, New Zealand ranks 16th in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 90.01 Mbit/second (20th place).In mobile internet, i.e., on tablets and smartphones, New Zealand comes 27th with a download speed of 63.15 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 11 Mbit was only enough for 56th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in October 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100 percent mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the internet in New Zealand from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in New Zealand 2000 - 2021

Landlines 1990 - 2021
Mobile phones 1990 - 2021
Distribution in 2021 | New Zealand Total | New Zealand percent | USA Total | USA percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Broadband users | 1.80 m | 35.16 % | 127.03 m | 38.27 % |
Landlines | 651,000.00 | 12.71 % | 97.11 m | 29.26 % |
Mobile cellulars | 5.85 m | 114.12 % | 361.62 m | 108.96 % |