Higher NBN speeds and switching retailers don’t make web browsing faster: ACCC

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Average speed on NBN’s 500-1000 / 50Mbps plane

Image: ACCC

If you think you need to upgrade from an NBN 50Mbps to 100Mbps speed plan because your web browsing seems slow, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has a simple tip: just don’t do it. not.

“Moving from the 50/20 Mbps level to the 100/40 Mbps level would result in almost no noticeable improvement in web performance,†said an ACCC report prepared by SamKnows.

“This result suggests to consumers whose primary activity is web browsing that plan speed does not need to be a primary consideration when selecting an Internet plan.”

Understandably enough, higher speed plans lead to slight increases in page load times, but the report says those differences weren’t significant.

Likewise, there is little to be gained from switching NBN providers.

“The results of all major RSPs tested are very satisfactory and suggest that there are insignificant performance differences between vendors. All of the RSPs studied offer good web performance, which suggests that the choice of RSP is not likely to have a significant impact on web browsing performance â€It said.

“This discovery means that other factors beyond the control of the consumer, such as the design and operability of a website, will have a greater impact on a website’s performance and on the experience of a website. interaction with him. ”

In the regular Measuring broadband Australia Also released on Wednesday, it was revealed that the 500-1000 / 50 Mbps services that NBN labels as Home Ultafast receive an average download speed of 670 Mbps.

This number was determined from 6,750 tests carried out on 52 fiber connections to the site and HFCs.

At this speed level, the report said there was “considerable variation” throughout the day, with the 18 hour drop being 138 Mbps below the 23 hour peak.

“This drop in speeds for very high speed services is greater than for other large NBN packages … including NBN100 packages,” he said.

“This shows that very high speed NBN plans are more susceptible to congestion during peak periods than low speed plans.”

Download speeds were much more reliable and hovered around the 45 Mbps mark throughout the day.

For the month of February, the report states that Vocus-owned Dodo and iPrimus were trailing the channel on download speeds, hitting just 87.7% of plan speeds. In the lead, Exetel with 100.3%, followed by Optus with 100%, Telstra with 98.3%, TPG with 97.5% and Aussie Broadband with 96.6%.

For download speeds, iiNet was the slowest at 81.6% of plan speeds, followed by Aussie Broadband with 81.9%, while Exetel continued to lead the way with 89.2% and MyRepublic with 87 %. The rest of NBN retailers were clustered in the 84% to 87% range. Download speeds will not reach the same percentage as download because NBN does not overprovision it.

Of the 1,117 services used for the speed test, 8.1% were classified as underperforming.

“0% of underperforming NBN services are fiber connections to the node. 98% of underperforming NBN services are on the NBN50 and NBN100 plans, â€the report states.

“The average download performance excluding underperforming services is 100.3% compared to the 96.7% cited above for all services.”

On the 50 Mbps plans, the fiber to the node was about 6 Mbps, or 12%, less than that of other access technologies, and on the 100 Mbps plans, it was 16 Mbps slower.

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