Netflix has updated its Australian prime-time use ISP ratings, and it is a little bit of a shock.
Market behemoth Telstra (BigPond) was little more than a trickle at an average of 2.32Mbps, well behind Optus, TPG, iiNet, Exetel and Dodo/Primus.
It fact it was not a shock to Telstra’s Netflix watchers as speeds have not changed significantly this year after it appeared somehow to have throttled back to nearly 60% of its peak speed after the December 2015 rush.
In the USA, home of Netflix, 14 of the 15 major ISPs are faster than Telstra. You can check the speeds here.
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Netflix is more than a little tired of being blamed for slow streaming speeds so in May it bought Fast.com (iTWire article here) and it has now expanded that from the browser to iOS and Android.
It is not a substitute for Ookla’s Speedtest because it measures the speed between your device and the nearest Netflix server – but when your streaming is choking that is the measurement that counts. And that is the data Netflix needs to identify which ISPs and regions are doing well or not.
Streaming users are also reporting issues at present with the Internet being “sucked dry” by the Olympics. It is not just sport but the huge increase in downloads to cater for those who can’t stand to watch sport for two weeks straight. Stan servers based in Australia on AWS have also suffered due to increased internet use.
To be fair to Telstra, it does offer a range of consumer broadband speeds from snail-paced ADSL to ultra-quick 100Mbps cable. But the majority – still well over 50% of connections are on highly contended (shared bandwidth), copper, ADSL connections.
The NBN also offers plans from Tier 1 (12/1Mbps) to Tier 5 (100/40Mbps). Unfortunately, most NBN users are selecting lower cost tiers, and these will become contended too. NBN speeds are not guaranteed, and early stats seem to indicate that during peak internet use times it will deliver 20-30% less that you think you are paying for.
NBN Co said that speeds on its network are "an issue for retail service providers. The product supplied those service providers is capable of providing the advertised wholesale speeds. It is up to service providers to ensure they have the correct combination of product features, including traffic class allocation and sufficient Connection Virtual Circuit (CVC) capacity between the service provider and the NBN. These design decisions by the service provider will largely determine the speed the end user can achieve.”
In other words, a contended bandwidth is a feature of cheap ISP plans. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is aware of the issue and has already fined ISPs over contention issues – it fined one offering a greenfield estate up to 100Mbps per user when it only had a total of 20Mbps backhaul to NBN.
Test your speed frequently and do not be afraid to complain to your ISP if it is lower than you pay for. The ACCC is always interested.