This might promote discussion - or raise a chuckle. The source is based in the British Virgin Islands - a tax haven. The credibility of the analysis, I’ll leave for others to judge.
4 Likes
I think they very heavily weighted the Mobile BB experience over fixed line but even so I would think France tops AU with a much higher cybersecurity index as well. If we are ranked somewhere near 60th in the world for fixed line BB internet in the world the results inspire no confidence in me. The high ranking we also receive for data protection laws is puzzling, maybe they are talking about how the Govt is protected as I don’t see that for citizens. The high ranking we have with the UN is based on our e-Government Development Index ranking not our personal data privacy eg Meta-data retention.
4 Likes
Still laughing. At least until some one tries to use the assessment to mislead the greater public.
Certainly looks that way. I ignored the French and chose a few of my own for comparison.
While we have seen great mobile data rates in some locations in Australia, coverage and range is still very limited. Rural backhaul where there is good signal often appeared constrained. Something else not rated.
Looking at the relative cost of mobile internet in Japan (12x more expensive than Aust), does not align with our experience using a local data sim.
More importantly, while Australia talks up coverage based on percentage of the population, one promo for NTT Docomo suggests 99% of Japan is covered. Subways, Shinkansen, rural rail lines, it just worked. The Seikan rail tunnel was one exception. 54km under the sea between the main island of Honshu and Hokkaido.
4 Likes
Certainly, I just picked France as an example, Sth Korea is another, Norway and the list goes on. I think I understand their methods but it just doesn’t equate with many people’s real life experiences. Of course they then try to sell how safe as a VPN product they are…yep Five Eyes safe, one little thing they forgot to add how they can be easily forced to track anyone and keep logs and all of that secretly.
3 Likes
Those rankings are absolutely ridiculous. I understand that they may have weighted mobile, but even there I cannot recall ever getting 50Mbps on my phone. As for the cost of the ‘cheapest mobile internet’, while I’m not going to even bother digging into their methodology I am… surprised.
And yes, they ignore Australia’s ‘world-leading’ data retention/metadata laws and their misuse by dozens of government agencies.
2 Likes
It’s all a giggle.
generally between 70 & 120Mbs 
faster than my HFC
2 Likes
… I get way more than 120Mb/s when ‘the ex’ calls … 
1 Like
Mobile data in my house on Telstra 4G is slower than dialup. Needless to say, I dont use it. I really need to see what Optus and Voda are doing in this area, I think theres a new tower near me which might give better speeds.
2 Likes
Did you mean to say “slower than ADSL”? My old dialup modems only went up to 0.056 Mbps. That was in theory not actual experience.
It is worth looking at the other providers signals. We get Telstra 4G but only reliably with an aerial or putting the mobile data modem on the tin roof.
Optus is better in the house, but only when facing North.
Both services currently walk all over our 12Mbps ADSL2 connection. Optus this morning on 2 bars signal strength on the iPhone only hit 103/3 Mbps. It has been faster. The tower is approx 5,000m distant. Telstra is about half that. It may be worth looking further at what happens around your home, assuming your demands at peak evening times are still able to be met.
The quality of peak time service over fixed and mobile BB options is another aspect that may not have been assessed in the reported survey and assessment.
1 Like
Probably. Prior to ADSL mine was less than that. I had a good modem which I was able to use at pretty much full speed at my previous house. But, moving to a new area with pair gain, pfft… 28.8 was the best we could get, until they took pity on us and gave us access to slow ADSL.
1 Like
Know what you mean. We had pair gain back in 2002/3, when finally ADSL arrived near to us in Townsville. Tough! No pity from Telstra.
I’d subsequently paid a small fortune back then (more than $500) to have a second line (for business) run into the house to work from home. Dial up or fax or a phone call were all mutually exclusive. Mobiles cost a fortune to use. Internet, mobiles and even fixed line calls are so cheap today in comparison. They need to be given our seeming reliance on them.
Telstra had no hesitation offering the business line (obviously there were spare lines in the street) and the option for a full ISDN service. I was a little naive before I got lucky and nearly another year on learnt the line being a full service line could also support ADSL.
The real issue for Telstra was a lack of capacity at the local exchange more than 5km distant to connect more customers to the internet. Somehow they eventually found a spare for the business service, although that still took more than 3 months to delivery working.
2.1Mbps on a good day. Although many services including email seemed to be channeled (backhaul limited) by Telstra as though be were still on dial up.
It still seems pretty good compared to many of the experiences living and working in the north west of NSW or remote parts of Qld in the decade that followed.
One would think the latest NBN via Skymuster should pull our average speeds for broadband down. However it is probably not even considered in the assessments to date?
1 Like
Not too many people using it I guess. Had a friend down the south coast (inland on a farm) who had skymaster and hated it. He’s moved back to Sydney now and has FTTN and is much happier.
I’m finding that my average speeds are gradually dropping. When I first got FTTN 50/20 I was getting maybe 45/17 sometimes more, sometimes less. Now, its down to 38/14 and rarely more than that. Deteriorating copper? Or the dreaded congestion which we were not supposed to get? Lord knows. Still, better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick.
2 Likes
Check your link speed and that will be more telling if it is line or congestion. Your router/modem should have this detail. If the link speed up and down are at or very close to 50/20 then it is very likely congestion, if the link speeds reflect speeds closer to what you are getting then this is line issues eg the VDSL modem at your end, the state of the line from your modem to the node or it is perhaps the VDSL modem in the hub. If you can’t locate your link speed have your RSP run a line test for you, they will/should be able to determine if your line is an issue. When they run the test ask them to send the results to you (most are happy to do so unless they are at fault).
Its not the line speed.
Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps): 22600
Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps): 54999
Additionally, my line is capable of much more
Attainable Rate (Kbps): 141043 55785
2 Likes
Then it is congestion that is causing you issues. Line Rate (or link speed) should be close to your plan speeds which they are. This speed is a software setting so they control the plan speed for your link, and the attainable speed is a reflection of closeness to the hub and line condition (which from your results indicates both are very good). This speed disparity between link speeds (line rate) and actual achieved speeds can be related to several problems but the most likely of all is CVC allocations by your RSP ie they don’t have enough to support all their users at the speed tiers they provide which just means they don’t buy enough CVC from NBN Co… You could make a complaint to the ACCC & the TIO re the CVC but I don’t expect it will as an individual issue get you much traction but it may mean if enough complain then the ACCC & the TIO may step in to get it addressed. You could argue with your RSP however they are not meeting your contracted rate plan levels and you might be able to seek a reduction in your cost (or compensation) or a lesser speed tier plan and in this case you may have some hope with a TIO complaint.
2 Likes
I found this ACCC report most informative.
With an average of just 1.75Mbps of bandwidth in service per customer, it’s understandable why the NBN can feel a little slow sometimes.
It would make an interesting comparison with other national networks. Assuming there is a comparable data set for comparison?
P.S. An interesting aside?
The next graph from the report is useful in another way.
In June 2015 there were approx 5.9M ADSL internet services connected across the nation.
Four years later in June 2019 there was a significantly greater 7.8M total across the NBN and remaining ADSL customers. The growth is mainly due to fixed phone only customers having to move to an NBN service. Logically, some may now have internet where previously there was no access.
How many NBN customers don’t require internet? Even my Mother in Law on a Telstra phone only has been told she has internet at 12 Mbps, for Telstra’s needs to access and update the modem etc.
The assumption is all these low speed services (one million plus) will also be pulling the average fixed line BB results for Australia down?
More critically the true internet user customer base for the NBN as a business is significantly less than the total number of connected premises. (perhaps two million or so?)
3 Likes
Luckily we all don’t get on all at once all the time. This is what most RSP try to balance, the amount of CVC they need to purchase vs the service they provide their customers. Most consumers will quickly fault NBN Co for the poor service eg it’s just this poor nbn™. For a lot this is true, the service on satellite or fixed wireless is terrible in my opinion, then there are those who suffer a FTTN service that barely squeaks over the minimum required, and so on the litany goes.
This shields RSPs a little from backlash (not entirely) as they can brush some of their failings onto the nbn™ system. But it still comes down to a CVC issue for many that their service is poor particularly at peak times and sometimes off-peak. CVC costs too much as a result of NBN Co having to charge too much as they try to make a commercial outcome of a huge debt they owe.
So to remain profitable most RSPs buy the barest minimum to squeak through. As a business why wouldn’t RSPs try to maximise income vs costs. They aren’t in the business for the good of their consumers they are there for the good of their shareholders and pay packets they get.
3 Likes
The weights given to the 6 criteria are:
Global Cybersecurity index 0.13
Entertainment content availability 0.14
E-government availability 0.16
Personal data protection laws 0.17
Internet cost (mobile and broadband) 0.18 (0.09 ie half each)
Internet speed (three month average, mobile & broadband) 0.22 (0.11 ie half each)
Internet cost and speed are made up of half each of mobile and broadband.
Q1 Where does coverage and reliability figure in this?
Q2 What is the use of e-government availability if it doesn’t work?
Taking just one item, speed is derived from Speedtest Global Index Ranking mobile and fixed broadband speeds from around the world on a monthly basis. This source is the average of speed tests performed from those who chose to measure their mobile or broadband speed by country per month. Three months of data were combined by averaging the three figures 
.
Q3 How does that measured sample of speeds relate to the speed available to the whole population of the country?
Until somebody can show me if and how the sample measured represents the population it is meaningless. This is rather like the ACCC whitebox statistics, it measures something we just know what.
This is statistically invalid, you cannot average averages to get an aggregate average.
4 Likes
REally? Its not so bad that I feel I need to do anything like that. I signed up for 25/5, and when the offer came to upgrade to 50/20 at no additional cost, of course I took it. Its still faster than 25/5. I’ll complain when I cant do the things I want/need to, when online. Until then, its academic. My comments about a slowdown were just that… comments… they werent complaints.
1 Like
You don’t have to complain, it is totally your choice to do or not do so nor was I telling you to do it. That is why “could” is used not “should” to the CVC complaint, it is the ability not the need to do so. And again it was used as “could” with your RSP, not “should”. Sorry if you took it to mean you “should complain” that was not my intention.
