The ACCC wants volunteers to help monitor home internet speeds across the country

IF YOU’RE one of the lucky people to have signed up to the NBN, the country’s top consumer watchdog wants your help.

A new broadband speed monitoring program is about the kick and the ACCC wants your help.

IF YOU’RE one of the lucky people to have signed up to Australia’s new broadband internet infrastructure, the ACCC wants your help.

The country’s consumer watchdog is kicking off its broadband monitoring program to better understand the speeds and performance home internet customers are receiving. The majority of the testing will be on NBN services, however, there will also be some testing of other next generation services and also some ADSL services in the early part of the program, the ACCC said.

The program was announced last year and will measure and compare broadband speeds across the country.

“Performance information will be made publicly available for the benefit of all Australians,” said a statement from Communication Minister Mitch Fifield when the government announced the plan.

The program will install hardware-based devices in around 4000 households over four years, beginning with around 2000 volunteers in the first year.

If you’re involved in the program the small device will perform remote testing at various times throughout the day to gauge the speed of your home internet connection.

“Australians spend over $4 billion per year on fixed broadband services and currently many consumers are left angry, frustrated, and dissatisfied by services that don’t deliver the peak speeds that are promised,” ACCC acting chair Delia Rickard said.

“The volunteers will be helping to produce accurate, transparent, and comparable information about the quality and reliability of the fixed-line broadband services available in their area. This will lead to more competition and better value for money for broadband services.”

The idea is that the information produced by the program will help consumers shop around for the best home internet deal between ISPs.

The program is also expected to provide greater clarity for end-users who have been disappointed with their internet speeds after moving onto the NBN.

“The program will allow the ACCC to determine if issues are being caused by the performance of the NBN, or by ISPs not buying sufficient capacity,” Ms Rickard said.

On top of a connection fee, internet service providers such as Telstra, Optus and TPG are charged a fee by NBN Co for the maximum amount of total bandwidth they want available to their customers accessing the NBN, known as the Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) charge.

If they skimp on this cost, it means users will likely experience slower speeds during peak hour times when the network is busiest.

NBN Co has previously been criticised for the high CVC cost it charges but this month moved to a more flexible pricing arrangement which favours ISPs that buy more capacity.

The highly politicised NBN rollout has proved frustrating for many customers. According to the latest figures from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, NBN users are five time more likely to complain about their service.

Meanwhile a petition currently on the Parliament of Australia website is clinging to a pre-election debate and calling for the rollout to abandon copper based connections for superior full fibre connections.

The ACCC will receive $7 million over four years to carry out the speed monitoring program which is similar to schemes rolled out in the UK, US, Singapore and Canada.

Applications to sign up to the program are open until the end of July and can be found here.