The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has partnered with its New Zealand counterpart to release a report comparing the broadband performance in each country.
ACCC Commissioner, Anna Brakey said the Trans-Tasman comparison report on performance of selected broadband services showed New Zealand and Australian consumers on fibre to the premises connections received very similar download speeds.
“By benchmarking Australia’s high-speed broadband performance against other countries, we can assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the NBN,” Ms Brakey said.
“The NBN generally compares well to equivalent connection types in New Zealand, particularly download speeds during the day,” she said.
“However, NBN’s access charging model and approach to provisioning upload traffic on fixed-line connections appear to be causing some busy hour and upload metrics to fall below New Zealand’s.”
Ms Brakey said there were no technical impediments to the NBN matching New Zealand’s busy hour and upload performance on 100 Mbps download plans.
The Commissioner said the Report also showed New Zealand had more consistent performance during the evening hours, but Australian consumers on fixed wireless networks received faster download speeds and more stable connections than New Zealanders on fixed wireless.
“The report reveals that fixed-line (fibre to the premises and hybrid fibre cable) and fixed wireless networks in New Zealand have faster uploads than in Australia due to differences in how they are configured,” she said.
“Both download and upload performance in New Zealand is supported by the overprovisioning of plan speeds, whereas in Australia NBN overprovisions only the download component,” she said.
The ACCC and New Zealand Commerce Commission’s 48-page Report can be accessed at this PS News link.
