Statistics on Information Technology in New Zealand 6. The Internet in New Zealand has essentially a two-tier structure. The first tier is wholesalers, ie those operate offshore links and bring overseas Internet traffic to New Zealand.
Internet users are customers of ISPs, who are in turn customers of the wholesalers.
Between these two tiers is the New Zealand Internet Exchange, or NZIX, which offers a neutral point for ISPs to exchange data so that they do not have to send inter-ISP data offshore. To be counted as host, a computer must have its own Internet address, and be permanently and directly connected to the Internet. Home or small business computers which connect by dialling up to a service provider are not counted. Consequently it is reasonable to assume that there are more users than hosts, possibly by a factor of two or more. The graph below shows the growth of the New Zealand Internet and the total Internet over the last four years.