Most New Zealand households pay for more speed than they use, and a smaller number pay for too little and blame the Wi-Fi. The calculator above works it out from what your household actually does. The rest of this page explains the numbers behind it, so you can check the answer against your own habits.
Tick what happens in your home at the same time on a busy evening. The calculator adds up the bandwidth and matches it to the fibre, wireless and Starlink plans sold in New Zealand.
| Plan | Advertised | Measured (MBNZ, Apr 2026) | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fibre 100 (Home Fibre 100) | 100/20 Mbps | 106 down / 25 up | 1-2 people, HD streaming, calls |
| Fibre 500 (Home Fibre 500) | 500/100 Mbps | 508 down / 109 up | Most households, several 4K streams, gaming |
| Fibre Max (Home Fibre 920) | ~900/500 Mbps | 877 down / 502 up | Heavy uploads, big families, home offices |
| Hyperfibre 2000-8000 | 2-8 Gbps | Depends on your gear | Studios, servers, many 4K/8K streams |
| 4G/5G fixed wireless | Varies | 66 down / 23 up (4G) | Light use where fibre is unavailable |
| Starlink Residential | Up to 100-200+ Mbps | 130 down / 47 up | Rural homes without fibre |
Bandwidth figures are typical per-stream requirements; measured speeds come from the Commerce Commission’s Measuring Broadband New Zealand Report 28. Wi-Fi quality inside the house often matters more than the plan itself.
What each activity really needs
Speed requirements are lower than the marketing suggests. These figures are per stream or per person, and they are the bandwidth an activity uses while it is running, not a plan recommendation.
| Activity | Download | Upload | What matters more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web browsing, email, music | 1 to 3 Mbps | Under 1 Mbps | Latency |
| HD video streaming | 5 Mbps | Under 1 Mbps | Consistency |
| 4K video streaming | 25 Mbps | Under 1 Mbps | Consistency |
| Video call (Teams, Zoom, FaceTime) | 2 to 4 Mbps | 2 to 4 Mbps | Upload and jitter |
| Online gaming | 3 to 6 Mbps | 1 to 2 Mbps | Ping, not speed |
| Game or app download (100 GB) | As much as you have | — | Speed: 2 hours at 100 Mbps, 13 minutes at Fibre Max |
| Cloud backup, photo sync, uploading video | — | As much as you have | Upload speed |
| Security cameras (each) | — | 2 to 4 Mbps continuous | Upload speed |
Add up what happens at the same time on a busy evening, not the total over a day. Two 4K streams, a video call and someone gaming is roughly 60 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up — well inside a Fibre 100 connection on paper, but with no headroom for a download starting in the background.
Why upload speed is the one people get wrong
Plans are advertised on download, and most guides ignore upload entirely. Yet working from home, cloud backups, security cameras and anyone posting video all lean on upload. Fibre 100 gives about 25 Mbps up, Fibre 500 gives about 109 Mbps, and Fibre Max about 502 Mbps, according to the Commerce Commission’s April 2026 measurements. Copper VDSL manages around 21 Mbps and 4G fixed wireless about 23 Mbps, which is why a single video call can stutter on those connections when a backup runs in the background.
Matching a household to a plan
| Household | Plan that fits | Measured average (Report 28, April 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| One or two people, streaming and browsing | Fibre 100 | 106 Mbps down, 25 Mbps up |
| Family with several screens, some working from home | Fibre 500 | 508 Mbps down, 109 Mbps up |
| Heavy uploaders, large households, creators, serious gamers | Fibre Max | 877 Mbps down, 502 Mbps up |
| Businesses, multi-gig home networks | Hyperfibre 2000 to 8000 | Needs gigabit-plus modem and cabling to use it |
Fibre 500 is the sensible default for most households in 2026. Since Chorus’s Big Fibre Boost in June 2025 the old 300 Mbps plan became 500 Mbps at no extra wholesale cost, and by mid-2026, 86 per cent of Chorus’s 1.15 million fibre connections were on 500 Mbps or faster. The price difference to Fibre 100 is often only a few dollars a month.
Fibre Max only pays off if you regularly move very large files or have many people on at once. Streaming does not get better above about 25 Mbps per screen; the picture quality is set by the service, not your plan. Our fibre speeds guide goes through each tier in more detail, and the provider guide covers who sells what.
If fibre is not available
Fixed wireless suits light users but struggles with several 4K streams at once and slows in the evening. Starlink is now the largest rural connection type in New Zealand — 27 per cent of rural connections according to the Commerce Commission — and its Residential plans measured 130 Mbps (Residential 100) and 245 Mbps (Residential Max) in April 2026 with about 25 ms latency, which handles most households comfortably. Our Starlink guide covers the plans and costs. Copper is being switched off — Chorus has brought its nationwide date forward to the end of 2028 — so anyone still on VDSL or ADSL should plan a move rather than a faster copper plan.
Check what you are actually getting
Before changing plan, test the connection you have. Run a speed test over a cable, then over Wi-Fi from the room where it feels slow. If the wired result matches your plan and the Wi-Fi result does not, more speed will not help — the fix is Wi-Fi coverage, and our extender and mesh guide covers that. If both results are far below the plan, our guide to why internet is slow works through the causes in order.
Disclaimer
General information only. Bandwidth figures per activity are typical values published by the services themselves; measured plan speeds come from the Commerce Commission’s Measuring Broadband New Zealand Report 28 (July 2026) and vary by provider, modem and time of day.
Reference sources
Frequently asked questions
What internet speed do I need for Netflix in 4K?
About 25 Mbps per 4K stream, and 5 Mbps for HD. Any fibre plan handles several streams; the limit on most evenings is Wi-Fi reaching the television, not the plan.
Is Fibre 100 enough for a family?
Often yes for streaming and browsing, but the 25 Mbps upload gets tight with video calls, cloud backups and cameras. Fibre 500 costs little more and is what most New Zealand homes are now on.
What speed do I need to work from home?
A video call needs 2 to 4 Mbps each way, so the requirement is a steady upload and low jitter rather than a fast plan. Fibre 100 or better on a wired connection is comfortable; fixed wireless can struggle in the evening.
Do I need Fibre Max for gaming?
No. Gaming uses a few megabits; what it needs is low ping, which fibre delivers at 5 to 8 ms regardless of tier. Fibre Max only helps with downloading large games faster.
Is 300 Mbps still a plan in New Zealand?
Mostly not. Chorus upgraded 300/100 plans to 500/100 in June 2025. If you still test at 300 Mbps, ask your provider whether the boost was applied.
How much data do I need?
Nearly all New Zealand fibre plans are unlimited. The average household used 731 GB a month in mid-2026, and a fifth used more than a terabyte, so capped plans are rarely worth the saving.
