Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Internet
Worldwide Mac: getting online in New Zealand
Last year, after years of planning, my wife and I left the United States and moved to New Zealand. Moving to the other side of the world has meant adjusting to an entirely different geography and culture. Driving on the left, the "reversed" seasons, the completely unfamiliar constellations and upside-down face of the moon, and having everything expressed in metric are ever-present reminders of just how much life has changed for us since leaving the U.S.Another thing that's changed is our internet situation, and some of the changes have been big enough that it's profoundly affected our computing habits.
In the U.S. we had a fairly decent internet connection, especially for the Cleveland market: a 5 Mbps download speed, 768 Kbps upload, all delivered over the same cable line that delivered our television service. That internet connection, plus basic cable and a DVR, cost us a little over US$100 per month.
In New Zealand, the broadband landscape is completely different, and it's forced us to completely adjust our usage patterns.
According to a recent Norton Online Living Report (links to NZ Herald) commissioned by Symantec, New Zealanders spend an average of only 12.7 hours online per week, compared to a global average of 23.6 hours. Analysts are unsure why New Zealand lags so much in internet usage compared to the rest of the developed world, but after nearly a year of sampling the best they have to offer down here, I'm not at all surprised.
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