NBN report says we will need faster internet to handle modern lives, but will our broadband be fast enough?

A NEW study says we will have more connected devices than ever by 2020, but are the promised speeds for the NBN going to cut it?

As the likes of Apple TV and Netflix take over, will our internet connections be able to cope?

THE Aussie home of the future will be full of devices that connect to the internet, and have up to 12 apps using an internet connection at any one time.

That’s according to research by Telsyte, commissioned by the NBN. The two company’s found that an average household will go from using nine internet connected devices to 29 by 2020. This will be through everything from smart TVs and computers to smoke alarms or washing machines.

Because of this, the NBN says there will be five typical Australian households. They vary from busy families that will average up to 19 internet applications being used at once, to older couples that will use just 9.

Managing director of Telsyte, Foad Fadaghi said in a statement: “As Australian households embrace high-definition streaming video, online games and working from home with the help of cloud-based applications, the need for fast and reliable broadband will increase, especially during peak times when multiple applications are accessing the internet at once.”

As the likes of Apple TV and Netflix take over, will our internet connections be able to cope?

While the NBN commissioned the report, the network that is being rolled out might not be fast enough to actually handle the demand in which they are claiming will be on the network.

Under the Coalition government’s NBN, if you are using fibre-to-the-node technology, the speed of your internet will vary depending on how far you live from the node. The further away you are, the slower it’s going to be. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promises us a minimum speed of 25 Megabits per second (Mbps), the same speed that the US Federal Communications Commission defined as being the absolute bare minimum to be able to call an internet connection broadband. If you’re not on FTTN NBN, odds are you will be connected using HFC cable, the same network rolled out in the 1990s to offer pay TV.

HFC has potential to offer fibre speeds, but only if significant investment is made in improving the networks, an investment which could cost billions and still hasn’t been talked about properly. Otherwise, with HFC cable internet, you share your bandwidth with your neighbours, which means when everyone’s watching Netflix on a Sunday night it grinds to a halt. Forums are full of countless horror stories surrounding this.

In 2020, when Australian houses have more connected devices then ever, with multiple HD movies or TV shows streaming at the same time, as well as online gaming, music streaming and even washing machines sending data, how will our networks cope then? With just a 25Mbps connection, they simply won’t.

The NBN commissioned the study to try and show how important the internet will be for the modern home, and it will be, there’s no doubt about that. It’s just a shame the broadband network being built may not be good enough.