Median Downloads of 342Mbps for 5G in New Zealand – Is That Good Enough?

New Zealand’s median 5G download speed is 342.37 Mbps, according to OOKLA’s Speedtest Connectivity Report. The best recorded speed came from the Spark network, which also managed a median upload speed of 20.64 Mbps. One NZ was actually ranked as the better network, with a recorded Speedtest Connectivity Score of 74.58. That said, Spark was still the overall fastest 5G network, with a 5G speed of 62.12.

On paper, that looks great, but median speeds aren’t the whole picture. They’re the average of everything—the busy city towers, the quiet coastal zones, and the rural dead spots where your phone displays “5G” but behaves like anything but 5G.

So, is 342 Mbps good enough, or simply tolerable until the next wireless generation arrives? Read on to find out.

 

The Speedtest Connectivity Report

The 2025 Speedtest data places New Zealand in a fairly respectable position. 342 Mbps isn’t necessarily the fastest (we’ll make a global comparison next), but it isn’t going to frustrate the average user either. On a good day, that speed means:

• Cloud backups don’t stall mid-photo album

• Netflix 4K doesn’t become a pixelated frustration.

• Zoom calls stay crisp.
• You could download the new Windows 12 update without it breaking.

But—and there is a but—consistency isn’t guaranteed. New Zealand’s geography gets in the way of perfect coverage. Mountain ranges, patchwork population density, and telecom infrastructure that doesn’t spread as aggressively as it does in other countries all affect real-world experience. 342 Mbps is a functioning national average, but not everyone feels that number the same way.

The areas with the fastest speed included:

• Wellington (fastest, most populous city with a median mobile download speed of 186.4 Mbps)

• Lower Hutt (fastest median fixed download speed of 223.26 Mbps)

 

How Does That Compare to International Speeds?

5G speeds across the globe are wildly uneven. These countries often exceed download speeds of 300-400 Mbps:

• China

• South Korea

• Bulgaria

• United Arab Emirates
• Singapore

According to Statista, South Korea had the fastest 5G speeds in 2025, with Bulgaria ranking second.

So, you can see, New Zealand is neither underperforming nor setting benchmarks. It’s solidly adequate, we’ll call it, even though that sounds uninspiring, but it is generally what a mid-population, mid-density network rollout looks like.

Despite being solidly adequate, especially in big cities, it still ranks better than some technology-first countries. The UK ranks poorly in terms of speed and reliability, as does Belgium. They are two countries that you’d think would excel. In the UK, areas like London are notoriously unreliable because of the dense population and built-up areas, similar to Belgium.

 

When Will We Get 6G?

6G conversations are happening. Soft predictions put early 6G adoption around 2030–2032, with limited pilot networks arriving before that at around the end of the 2020s. And even when it does start rolling out, the process of taking over 5G will be so slow, similar to how it was when 5G overtook 4G networks.

Interestingly, the goal of 6G isn’t speed, as it was with 5G. Its real advantage will be:

• Near-zero latency

• Ambient smart-device communication

• Network-powered automation rather than device-powered

• An infrastructure that interprets rather than simply transmits
• Combining artificial intelligence and sensing to create smarter, more context-aware networks

Basically, 5G made streaming and mobile work smooth. 6G will turn networks into thinking environments rather than passive delivery systems.

So, New Zealand’s 342 Mbps might not dominate global charts, but it’s stable enough to support a digital nation. It just needs consistent upgrades, smarter rural coverage, and a faster switch into the technologies that will demand more than 342 Mbps sooner than the average household realizes.

If this is 5G’s median, 6G will have to be more than just “faster; it will be transformative.