NBN’s internet performance isn’t up to speed, watchdog warns

NBN plans are failing to deliver the maximum speeds consumers are paying for.

NBN speed tests rarely exceed 95 per cent of the plan speed.

NBN plans are failing to deliver the maximum speeds consumers are paying for, with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission saying retail telcos cannot provide 100 per cent of the advertised speed.

According to the regulator, consumers can never make full use of their plan speed even outside busy hours, with NBN speed tests never exceeding much more than 95 per cent of the plan speed.

The technical issue was present across all NBN speed tiers, the ACCC said.

“Headers, or tags, are added to consumers’ communications when they are sent over a network, to ensure the communications are sent to the right network addresses,” it said.

“The current capacity does not appear to allow for this extra data, preventing the communications from being sent at the maximum plan speed.

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“NBN Co could resolve this if it allowed services to run 5 per cent faster before enforcing speed limits.”

The gap highlighted by the ACCC is caused because a small amount of bandwidth is needed to transport the data across the network and make sure that it reaches the right IP address.

So if a plan offers a theoretical maximum speed of 100 megabits per second the consumer can only get 95Mbps. The remedy, as suggested by the regulator, is for NBN to ‘‘over-dimension’’ the wholesale service and provide the telco with the extra bandwidth needed to cover the gap.

The ACCC’s latest snapshot of the speeds delivered across the NBN has also highlighted that the quality of service received by homes varies depending on the access technology used to connect them to the network. Picture: AAP

NBN Co said it was talking with the telcos about covering the gap as part of its latest wholesale pricing review.

“Based on the industry’s interest in this feature, NBN Co is considering expanding its proposed scope of works to over-dimension the downstream speed of the 50/20, 100/20, 110/40 and 250/25 product tiers,” a NBN Co spokesman said.

The ACCC’s latest snapshot of the speeds delivered across the NBN has also highlighted that the quality of service received by homes varies depending on the access technology used to connect them to the network.

Hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connections experienced the highest average daily outage rate, recording one every two to three days, according to the regulator.

HFC connections also recorded long outages of more than three minutes more often than other technologies.

Consumers on fibre to the node (FTTN) connections experienced slightly fewer outages. However, a significant number of FTTN consumers rarely record speeds better than 75 per cent of their maximum plan speeds at any time of day. Homes with fibre to the premises (FTTP) NBN connections had the best service, recording few outages of more than 30 seconds.

The ACCC’s speed tests are designed to highlight the performance of the retail telcos in the market. The latest report has seen Optus dethrone TPG Telecom for the highest percentage of maximum download speeds during the busy 7pm to 11pm evening period.

According to the regulator, all retail telcos delivered average NBN download speeds of 76-87 per cent of maximum plan speeds during the high-demand evening hours in August 2019.