With more people working from home, we’re hearing some reports that internet performance is also suffering. For those who can work from home, access to a reasonable quality internet connection has become important. What’s your experience?
We’ve created this list to show what Telcos are doing during this difficult time, including special offers:
No change in performance in central north Tasmania (FTTP connection),
For our 50/20 plan with TPG, we are getting around 47/18. Just tested and the result was:
The speeds haven’t changed in the past two weeks since we moved to the Apple Isle.
Not much of a change here, my internet speed had already begun dropping (from a steady 43 to 38 or so in recent months)… I’ve had no real issues though, doing what I want to. Then again, I’m not a worker so my demands wont be so great. Then again… When I first signed up it was 45/18… Exetel FTTN
No. Slow before. Slow still. But not faster or slower.
I think the effects will be worst for those using wireless internet technologies (fixed wireless or mobile or satellite).
Aussiebroadband to:
Telstra Melbourne is clocking 47.15/50 down and 18.91/20 up with 9 ms pings.
Vocus Melbourne clocks 47.24/50 down but only 13.46/20 up with 11ms pings.
Long term averages are about 47/50 and 18/20 with 8-9 ms pings. COnclusion, nothing out of the ordinary excepting the morning upload test to Vocus seems an outlier.
No changes to the norm here in the Glass House Mountains.
ADSL2+ copper! 11.8 down 0.9 up and a 21ms ping.
Mobile Data
Optus mobile iphone 4G:
40.4 down 5.0 up and a 19ms ping. (Not that close to the tower, low up is normal)
Telstra 4GX data only:
48.6 down 11.2 up with 26ms ping. (Same tower site as Optus, dedicated device)
A Distraction:
The local ADSL exchange and not so near mobile towers are on the fibre network. Access to NBN FW has only just become available. Unless you are a big user the mobile data options are reliably faster for now. I don’t believe any of the neighbours have had time to move before all went “topsy” either.
No change on the Gold Coast. Below is my history, and you can see when I moved to 50/20 NBN HFC, Since then the performance has been patchy., but currently up at the usual levels.
No probem in Mt Sheridan (Cairns).
47.7 Mbps download and 18.6 Mpbs upload. The fastest I have seen to date.
Upload has always been an issue. 45 down pretty consistent. Only 3 up, 5 if I am lucky. With Telstra (NBN)
Netfix has a speed test thing, it uses Ookla, like almost everyone these days. That is showing a definite decrease in d/l speed for me. 22Mbps. Its enough for streaming (I was happy with my 25/5 until Exetel basically made an offer you’d be crazy to ignore)…
Satellite service. ISP has given us an extra 10GB each week over the COVID-19 crisis. However we are getting emails saying the system is getting overloaded and slowing. It was slow to start with. Now can’t get some websites eg Gmail inbox. Performance now (able to connect to Gmail (Yay!!)… families must be eating tea and not streaming) is:-
Ping 635ms - well it is about 60,000km
Download 2.20 MB/sec
Upload 0.65 MB/sec
Oh yuk! 
Although until 2015 when we moved, that was our daily norm, ADSL since 2004. 2.2-2.5Mbps.
I’ve worked on two very remote sites. One on satellite with all the other work guys fighting to do basic email, and another at the end of a long microwave link with 200 users. None of it works well for much more than basic text content. Online banking was always a challenge, 3am morning sessions excepted.
Just before I log into the office, I am getting download speed of around 29Mbps - down by about 10Mbps on normal. Upload speed and ping do not appear to be affected.
The remote access to work has been somewhat slow, largely because of the massive need for back end infrastructure.
More accurately … at the equator … about 4 x 36,000 km for a minimum ping time of about 480 ms, rising somewhat as the latitude increases. So you can see that most of your ping time is due to the laws of physics, not due to a crap ISP or too many streamers. Bandwidth is of course a different kettle of fish.
Not complaining about ping times - they have NOT changed.
Before the second satellite we paid for data, but not allowed to use it due the the “fair use” rules which assigned more usable data to school-of-the-air students. Then the second satellite reduced that restriction, but most of our data was only available between 2am and 7am.
Due to COVID-19 an extra 10GB a week was granted (to be used in that week). We started to notice a slowing of the system which meant we could not access some websites. The ISP issued an advisory saying the heavy usage period had moved to the middle of the day and users were experiencing issues.
Before the satellite NBN we had off-net ADSL Download 0.43MB Upload 0.03MB, so we do know what a poor service is! Even Telstra declined to offer us internet due to the distance and quality of the copper line.
Best wishes for those stuck at home.
No change for me. On fixed wireless I get ping 24ms, 23.9 down, 4.7 up on a 25/5 plan.
Aussiebroadband to Telstra Melbourne, just now @4pm, 95.10/38.06 & 9 ms ping. Download a smidgen lower than usual. I reckon there’s 2-3 times the usual hours of streaming, however total downloads haven’t changed.
In use it is a bit slower than usual on nbn satellite here, but it does vary a lot. ANT have given us an extra 40GB per month on top of our 45GB plan, not that we really have the speed to take advantage of it! It is very rare to see upload faster than download though.
A few minutes ago:
No i’m with Telstra.Still running just as it was before
