Customers on fixed-line NBN broadband connections experienced record high speeds in the month of May, according to the ACCC’s latest quarterly report.
According to the ACCC, May 2021 saw the highest speeds Australians have ever experienced on the NBN, which has been less than great since the launch of the network back in 2009.
Additionally, most consumers mentioned in the report received their maximum plan speeds more frequently during peak periods between 7pm and 11pm, which is a huge win for gamers, binge-watchers and other internet fiends.
The average download performance across the board in May was 98.4 per cent of plan speed, with the percentage being slightly lower at 97.6 per cent during peak periods.
The largest improvement across the telco sector was for Vocus Group (Dodo and iPrimus, specifically), which improved 5.4 percentage points across the board when compared to the last quarter.
The improvement comes after Vocus was found by the Federal Court to have not used an adequate speed-testing methodology. Back in June, Vocus Group was hit with a $2.5 million fine for misleading claims regarding internet speeds.
Other major improvements were seen from Vodafone and MyRepublic, which saw 4.3 and 3.7 percentage points increase respectively during busy periods in the last quarter.
Overall, retail service providers have seen a significant improvement across the board, hitting between 92.2 and 100.5 per cent of plan speeds across all major plans, which is a great thing for consumers.
“The performance gap between retail service providers’ download speed metrics has narrowed significantly in recent reports, however individual consumer experiences by retailer still vary,” ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.
The same can’t be said for fibre-to-the-node services, however, which are still performing worse than other network connections across the board.
“There is a persistent cohort of fibre to the node customers that are still experiencing slower than expected speeds, and NBN Co and retailers have been slow to address this,” Ms Brakey said.
“While it’s encouraging that some of the fibre to the node services we monitor are improving, especially given the additional investment announced by NBN Co last year, retailers and NBN Co need to collectively do more.”
Comments