internet reliability in New Zealand

[Keilah]

I'm a professional online poker player considering moving to new zealand in 2010. It's EXTREMELY important to me that internet is highly reliable, as in never disconnecting, always works - doesn't need to be lightning fast but if there are numerous 10-30second disconnects throughout the day (as has been the case in Thailand) then I can lose a lot of money pretty quickly.

Who can tell me about the quality and reliability of the internet connections down there? If it's only good in one or two cities I'll happily move to one of those cities, as long as it IS good. If it's not, then New Zealand just isn't an option.

Thanks!

[topcat83]

We live in South-East Auckland.
We haven't had many problems with disconnects (a couple though in the 3 years we've been here) but we do find the connection slow. One reason for this is because we do transfer quite a lot of data, and at busy times they tend to strangle the download speeds.
I assume that online Poker doesn't require too much data transfer though.

PS one of our friends (a NZer) is also an online poker player and has never complained about any major issues