New Zealand home fibre is delivered over the Chorus and Enable networks, and the speed tiers are set by those networks rather than by each provider. Latitude Internet resells both, so the tiers below are what's available at most fibre-connected addresses.
Tier | Typical download | Typical upload | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|
100 Mbps | ~100 Mbps | ~20 Mbps | 1-3 people, streaming and browsing |
500* Mbps | ~500* Mbps | ~100 Mbps | Busy family homes, work from home plus gaming |
Gigabit | ~900 Mbps | ~500 Mbps | Large households, frequent big downloads |
Hyperfibre 2 | ~1800 Mbps | ~1800 Mbps | Heavy uploaders, creators, home servers |
Hyperfibre climbs further to 4000/4000 and 8000/8000 for specialised use although modem/routers to handle these speeds are hard to source at an affordable price. The two numbers in a tier are download then upload. On the standard tiers those differ (100 down, 20 up), while Hyperfibre is symmetrical, meaning you get the same speed both ways.
Latitude Home Fibre Broadband starts at $69 a month, and connections are usually arranged within 12 hours of ordering. Before you pick a tier, it's worth confirming the address is fibre-ready, which you can do in about two minutes using the fibre availability check.
Add up what runs at the same time on a busy evening, not the sum of every device you own. According to BroadbandNow's speed guide, HD streaming needs around 5 Mbps and 4K streaming up to 25 Mbps per device, while online gaming uses under 1 Mbps because ping and jitter matter far more than raw speed for competitive play.
That maths is why the plan people think they need is usually larger than the one they use. A single person who streams, takes the occasional video call and browses rarely passes 50-100 Mbps at any one moment, per BroadbandNow. Stack a few 4K streams, a couple of gaming sessions and some background cloud backup, and a genuinely busy four-person home still peaks around 150-200 Mbps down. Everything below that peak sits idle.
The number people forget is upload. A single 1080p video call needs about 4-5 Mbps up, so two people on simultaneous calls plus background sync wants roughly 20 Mbps of upload as a floor, again per BroadbandNow. If your home runs regular video meetings, upload is often the tier decider more than download.
A 100 Mbps plan comfortably covers a home with two or three people, including one 4K TV. BroadbandNow puts it plainly: 100 Mbps handles the streaming needs of one or two active users, and with 4K at up to 25 Mbps per device you can run a couple of high-quality streams and still browse.
Where 100 Mbps starts to feel tight is the 20 Mbps upload. Two people on video calls at once, plus a phone backing up photos, can bump into that ceiling and cause calls to stutter even while downloads look fine. For a couple, a flat or a household that mostly streams and browses, 100 Mbps is a real plan, not a compromise.
For most New Zealand family homes, 500* Mbps is the right tier and the one I'd recommend by default. A 500* Mbps plan gives roughly 3-5 times the headroom over the 100 Mbps a single active user pulls, and it absorbs the 150-500* Mbps peak of a four-person home without slowing anyone down, based on BroadbandNow's household figures.
The reason 500* Mbps wins for so many homes is the 100 Mbps upload. That comfortably carries two remote workers on calls, cloud sync running in the background, and someone uploading video, all at once. The everyday difference people notice moving from 100 to 500* Mbps is usually the upload behaving under load, not web pages loading faster, because pages already load instantly at 100 Mbps.
My view is that most homes buy too much speed. Gigabit gets marketed hard, but the ceiling you hit at home is almost never the fibre line: it's the Wi-Fi, the router and the devices. If you're weighing tiers, spend the money on strong Wi-Fi coverage before you spend it on a bigger number. 65% of Latitude home fibre customers choose the 500* Mbps tier.
We recommend a minimum of a Gigabit router with at least Wi-Fi 6, ask us about upgrading to one of our standard Latitude routers available from only $130.
Gigabit and Hyperfibre earn their price on large file transfers, not on streaming. SpeedTestHQ times a 100 GB game download at about 35 minutes on 500* Mbps against 13 minutes on 1 Gbps, and a 40 GB game at under 6 minutes on a true gigabit line. If you regularly move video editing projects, large game libraries, virtual machine images or full system backups, those minutes add up across a week.
Gigabit makes sense for a large, always-busy household or anyone who downloads big files often. Hyperfibre 2 goes further and is built for people who upload as much as they download: creators pushing large video files to clients, someone running a home server, or a household with several heavy users who all move data at once. Its symmetrical up to 2000 Mbps upload is the real feature, because standard tiers give you far less headroom going out than coming in.
Very few homes come close to saturating even a 500* Mbps line, let alone a gigabit one. Buy gigabit or Hyperfibre because you have a specific job for the upload or the transfer speed, not because it's the top of the list.
Upload is the quiet reason two plans with similar download tests can feel completely different. On the standard tiers, upload steps up with the tier: about 20 Mbps at 100, 100 Mbps at 500* and around 500 Mbps at gigabit. Hyperfibre is the point where upload matches download exactly.
Fibre's advantage here is real. SpeedTestHQ notes that older copper and cable-style connections cap upload low, often around 35 Mbps regardless of the download number, which is why those lines struggle with video calls and cloud backups even when downloads look quick. Fibre gives you far more upload at every tier, and that headroom is what keeps calls smooth and backups quiet in the background while everyone else is streaming.
Match the tier to the busiest moment in your week, then check your Wi-Fi can carry it. A simple way to decide:
I
f you're still deciding between fibre tiers and whether fibre is even the best fit for your address, the fibre versus wireless comparison walks through when each one wins. When you're ready, you can order home fibre online, or call 0800 528488 to talk it through first.
For a family of four, 500* Mbps is the safe pick. Two adults working from home plus two teenagers gaming and streaming peaks around 150-200 Mbps down and 50-70 Mbps up on a busy evening, per BroadbandNow, and a 500* Mbps plan handles that with headroom to spare. Drop to 100 Mbps only if calls and heavy uploads rarely happen at the same time.
Gigabit is worth it if you regularly move large files, and usually not worth it if you mostly stream and browse. SpeedTestHQ shows the clear win is transfer time, a 100 GB download in about 13 minutes on gigabit versus 35 minutes on 500* Mbps, rather than everyday web use, which is already instant at lower tiers. For most homes the limiting factor is Wi-Fi and devices, not the fibre line, so the gigabit speed often never reaches your laptop.
Hyperfibre 2 makes a real difference for people who upload heavily, because it delivers up to 2000 Mbps in both directions rather than the lower upload on standard tiers. It suits creators sending large video files, home servers, and households where several people move big files at once. If your home mainly streams and browses, you won't notice the difference over a 500* Mbps plan.
Download is how fast data comes to you, and upload is how fast it leaves, such as during video calls and cloud backups. Standard fibre tiers give more download than upload, roughly 20 Mbps up at the 100 tier and 100 Mbps up at the 500* tier, 500 Mbps up at the gigabit tier while Hyperfibre matches the two. Upload is often what separates a plan that feels fast from one that stutters during calls, so it's worth checking as closely as the download number.
A faster plan only fixes buffering if the fibre line is the bottleneck, which is uncommon in a home already on 100 Mbps or more. Most slowdowns come from Wi-Fi range, an older router, or too many devices on one band, and a higher tier won't touch any of those. Sort the Wi-Fi and router first, then step up the tier only if you genuinely peak past what you're paying for. We recommend a minimum of a Gigabit router with at least Wi-Fi 6, ask us about upgrading to one of our standard Latitude routers available from only $130.
* 500/100 Mbps is available on the Chorus network but on the Enable network this is a 300/100 Mbps plan
For more information please contact us
Author : David Gabites