Chorus says the the rollout of its ultral fast broadband (UFB) network is ahead of schedule.
However, it says a lot is riding on the price it will finally be able to charge for the services it delivers over the existing copper network.
The telecommunications lines company says its fixed line connections increased only slightly, by 6000 lines, over the three months ended 30 September.
There are now 1.78 million lines, while total broadband connections rose to 15,000.
The corporate affairs manager, Ian Bonnar, says the Commerce Commssion's final determination on copper wire pricing, due next April, is critical to the company's planned rollout of its UFB network.
He said money earned from the existing copper network goes a long way towards funding the build of the new fibre network.
Mr Bonnar said more and more people were moving to higher quality connections such as VDSL and more were signing up for fibre as well.
Mr Bonnar said the company's ultra-fast broadband network was connected to more than 286,000 premises at the end of September.
Some 386,000 end-users were now within reach of the network, with access to about 37,000 fibre connections.