A report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has found that fixed-line NBN broadband services have continued to deliver strong results despite facing unprecedented demand during May and June this year.
The ACCC’s 10th quarterly Measuring Broadband Australia report is the first to provide detailed results on network performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chair of the ACCC, Rod Sims said there had been an improvement in download speeds for all speed tier plans and across all retail service providers (RSPs) during the period from May to June.
“MyRepublic and iiNet have shown the greatest improvement in their busy hour download speeds — 5.4 per cent and four per cent respectively — since the last report,” Mr Sims said.
“Speeds are also similar to those seen prior to the pandemic, in spite of a prolonged surge in broadband demand as households and businesses practice Coronavirus restrictions.”
He said NBN Co.’s decision to offer Retail Service Providers (RSPs) 40 per cent extra network capacity for free has been crucial to the network’s sustained performance.
“We welcome their decision to extend this offer until 30 November,” Mr Sims said.
He said the ACCC had previously reported that average download speeds on NBN Co.’s 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps tiers had dropped by 14 per cent and 23 per cent, respectively before the move by NBN Co., and the measures by streaming providers, to reduce their picture quality for viewers.
Mr Sims said a continuing positive finding was the steady decline in under-performing services from 9.6 per cent to 8.1 per cent, due to consumers having their modem or in-home wiring issues fixed, or moving to lower and less expensive speed plans to ensure they received the speeds they paid for.
“We encourage NBN Co and RSPs to continue to build upon this result,” he said.
