Accc Speed Test

[Leto Corrales]

Informationfor "This report" is based on measurement results collected in March 2024 and published in our most recent quarterly report. Information for the "Last report" is based on measurement results collected in December 2023.

An NBN fixed-line connection utilises a physical line running to the household to connect it to the NBN network. There are a number of fixed-line technologies: fibre to the premises (FTTP), fibre to the building (FTTB), fibre to the curb (FTTC), fibre to the node (FTTN), and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC).

The NBN fixed-line busiest hour download speed results are lower than the busy hour download speeds. This indicates that there were periods of higher demand during March 2024 that affected the performance of NBN fixed-line services.

The NBN fixed-line service providers featured in the report achieved an average upload speed per service of 87.3% of the service's plan speed during busy hours in March 2024. Upload results are usually lower than download results relative to plan speed as the upload component of NBN speed tiers is not overprovisioned like it is for the download component.

On average, NBN fixed-line services on the NBN 50 and NBN 100 plans attained download speeds close to their plan speed during busy hours, while services on the NBN 25 plan exceeded their plan speed in March 2024.

In March 2024, each NBN fixed-line access technology achieved an average download speed per service during busy hours exceeding the service's plan speed, except for FTTN which accounts for most of the underperforming services.

During March 2024, services with a plan download speed of 25 Mbps achieved average hourly speeds throughout the day that exceeded their plan speed. Average hourly download speeds were also steady throughout the day for services with higher plan speeds, albeit slightly below the maximum plan speed which was more notable during increased user activity in the evening busy hours. Average hourly upload speeds were steady throughout the day, with negligible change during evening busy hours across plans.

Average daily download and upload performance on NBN fixed-line services was broadly stable for all plan speeds during all hours between February 2024 and April 2024. There was more variability in download performance during busy hours compared with all hours, particularly for services with the 100 Mbps plan speed.

The average download speed for NBN very high speed services in March 2024 was 850.7 Mbps during all hours and 838.2 Mbps during the busy hours. The average upload speed was 46.1 Mbps during all hours and 46.0 Mbps during the busy hours.

The average hourly download speeds for NBN very high speed services ranged from 831 to 854 Mbps Mbps during March 2024. Upload speeds for very high speed services showed little variation throughout the day.

Web page loading time: This chart shows the average time needed to load a website across test results from eight popular Australian-based webpages. The average web page loading times during all hours and busy hours in March 2024 were in line with results from previous reports.

Latency: Latency results from March 2024 were consistent with results from the previous report during all hours and busy hours. These values are low enough that their effect is unlikely to be noticed by a typical end user, even when using more latency-sensitive applications (such as video-conferencing services or online gaming).

Packet loss: During March 2024, the majority of packet loss tests had zero packet loss with a small minority recording a packet loss greater than 1%. At these higher levels, packet loss can cause issues for certain types of applications and disrupt user experience.

During March 2024, the average rate of outages per day on fixed-line NBN connections was 0.23 across service providers featured in the report. The average rate of outages per day was 0.26 for services on other superfast networks and 0.32 for NBN very high speed services. These outage rates are in line with results from previous reports.

NBN fixed-line connections and NBN fixed wireless connections utilise different technologies that are not directly comparable in terms of performance. An NBN fixed-line connection utilises a physical line running to the household to connect it to the NBN network. An NBN fixed wireless connection transmits data over radio signals to connect a household to the NBN network and uses similar technology to mobile networks. Around 4% of NBN consumers are served by NBN fixed wireless, typically in rural and regional areas, but it may also be used in outer metropolitan centres.

During March 2024, users on NBN fixed wireless services attained an average download performance of 102.7% of plan speeds during all hours, decreasing to 87.7% during the busy hours. Average upload performance was 72.0% of plan speeds during all hours, decreasing to 62.5% during the busy hours.

Average daily download and upload performance on Fixed Wireless Plus services was relatively stable during all hours between February 2024 and April 2024, albeit with a level of variation expected for this technology. There was more variability across days during busy hours compared with all hours, particularly for download performance.

Web page loading time: This chart shows the average time needed for NBN fixed wireless services to load a website across test results from eight popular Australian-based webpages in March 2024. The average web page loading times during all hours (3.0 seconds) and busy hours (3.1 seconds) were in line with results from previous reports.

Latency: This chart illustrates the average latency for NBN fixed wireless services observed in March 2024 during all hours (43.3 milliseconds) and busy hours (44.6 milliseconds). These results are in line with the previous report.

Packet loss: During March 2024, 70.5% of packet loss tests on NBN fixed wireless services had zero packet loss. 2.9% of packet loss tests had a packet loss greater than 1%. At these higher levels, packet loss can cause issues for certain types of applications and disrupt user experience.

The ACCC acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands across Australia on which we live and work. We acknowledge their connection to this Country and pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

The result is revealed in the second release of numbers under the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) broadband monitoring program, and is set to cause yet more discomfort for NBN Co and the government.

The report defined an "underperforming" service as one where "no more than five percent of the speed tests that we conducted over the service achieved a speed that was above 75 percent of the maximum plan speed."

Thanks to one of the original sins of NBN, that it needed to provide a return to government to keep it off the Budget papers, the per Mbps charge was created. From a user standpoint, this has been a handbrake on the network ever since.

"There is a very real danger that billions of dollars could be spent providing capacity that is neither adopted nor used," de Ridder said in January 2013. "This will be the case if premiums are charged for higher speeds, because consumers are not prepared to pay for speed."

Where the CVC gets real prickly for telcos is that NBN sells and allots it on each point of interconnect (POI) on its network. For this reason, it is possible that a retailer in one Sydney suburb might be clogged because it has not purchased enough capacity, while users in a suburb or two over on a different POI are fine.

In the ancient NBN past of 2010, the government-owned wholesaler wanted 14 points of interconnect around the nation. However the ACCC wanted far more than that, and that is why today the network has 121 POIs across Australia.

"In particular, 120 POIs will generate higher setup and running costs for all industry players -- except Telstra, of course, as it looks like these points will all be Telstra exchanges," Hackett said.

"This large number of POIs will drive the industry toward having a smaller number of bigger players, rather than a larger number of smaller players, as the overheads of operating and ramping up in 120 POIs will be too much for very small players to afford."

In recent years, it looked like the ACCC was onto a winner with its speed tests of the nation's NBN providers. Now broadband consumers can find out which retailers were skimping on CVC, and which ISPs could claim to be truly the fastest.

"This is because headers, or tags, are added to consumers' communications when they are sent over a network, to ensure the communications are sent to the right network addresses," the ACCC said.

The key thing to realise in what the ACCC is saying here is that NBN is meant to be constrained to being a layer 2 provider that just moves bits in Ethernet frames around -- anything above that is the purview of retailers.

The one exception being earlier this year when NBN announced it was trying to loosen the restraints and move into layer 3 on satellite services to allow it to exempt certain traffic from its satellite data quotas.

A passing knowledge of networking protocols would say that if you have speeds set by a layer 2 provider, the moment you slap on some TCP/IP headers, the maximum available speed at those higher layers would not match that at the lower layers.

"NBN continues to consult with RSPs and is working through the technical aspects required to sufficiently over-dimension key product tiers to compensate for protocol overhead so that more customers may receive faster download speeds," NBN told ZDNet last week.

In a surprising move - given how politically-charged debates around access technologies can be - the latest competition watchdog-commissioned broadband speed test report [pdf] breaks out data by access technology for the first time.

Federal Labor raised the possibility of an NBN writedown this week, a prospect that has been flatly rejected by the current government. Labor has also been under pressure to fix parts of the NBN, or at least deploy better access technology for the remainder, if it comes to power at the next election.

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