In response to recent ill informed commentary on social media regarding Vodafone utilizing the submarine cable service on the Manatua Cable through the Avaroa Cable Ltd (ACL), for the record, Vodafone signed up to capacity on ACL in September last year as reported in the media. This effectively doubled international Internet capacity. Vodafone retained capacity on O3b as a redundancy measure. This month Vodafone doubled its capacity commitment on ACL. Vodafone’s current capacity on Manatua is 3x the capacity that was retained on O3b. Currently the Standard and Value Broadband Plans use O3b, all other plans including Mobile are on the ACL service.
In spite of some comments that the internet service has worsened, the following measures can shed some light on the user experience.
Since September 2019 (pre COVID) to Sept 2021.
Average usage has increased by 200%
Facebook Video usage has increased over 100%
Netflix users have increased from peak active sessions of 400 to 1200. Total monthly consumption of Netflix is over 100TB and this is increasing month by month, bandwidth consumption from Netflix servers has increased 6 fold.
Mobile Data consumption has increased by 70% and now represents 60% of total internet usage.
Top Social media sites accessed and usage are Facebook (70%) , TikTok (20%), Others (Instagram, Snapchat etc. is the remainder).
60% of the internet use daily is made up of Facebook, Tiktok, Youtube and Netflix
Overall 75% of internet use is for entertainment.
These measures indicate that customers are using and consuming more internet capacity than ever before, at a time when the economy is severely depressed and money is tight. This is in part due to the additional capacity that Vodafone has on the Manatua Cable, the increased caps rolled out last year on Internet plans and the customer appetite for data packages deals.
If individuals are experiencing problems it is likely to be more to do with the local access or home network connection and they should contact Vodafone on the fault number to have this checked out. We are seeing an increasing issue with too many devices active on the home WiFi network with little knowledge on how well the home network is delivering to the home devices. If customers are experiencing any issues with their Vodafone services, the quickest and most efficient way is to contact us directly.
Vodafone understands that the increased demands on internet usage is exceeding the capability of the copper network to deliver user expectations and is accelerating the rollout of the Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) network with Business connectivity taking priority. To date there are over 700 active Fibre connections servicing Government, Hospitality and Schools. In addition to this long term investment, a shorter term solution to deliver higher throughput to customers is underway pending equipment delivery from suppliers, which unfortunately has been delayed by COVID effects on international electronics supply and freight.
