The Akamai ‘State of the Internet’ report for Q3 2010 has just been released, revealing interesting statistics about the net around the world. For any geek, the results for Australia are a slightly depressing read.
The fastest average connection speed for any suburb in Australia was 5.8Mbps in Riverwood, NSW. Having spent a year of my life living in Riverwood, I can honestly say this is a surprise. But the 5.8Mbps – while fast compared to third world countries – doesn’t even come close to cracking the top 100 cities speeds around the world. As a means of comparison, 29 cities in South Korea and Japan manage to get an average speed of greater than 10Mbps, while Constanta in Romania was the top placed non-Asian country in at number 48. Overall, Australia only managed to gain less than a percent overall in the average download speed during the quarter, which is hardly an encouraging figure.
But the scariest part is the overall figures. Put on some sombre music, because these figures may be distressing.
Average connection speed: 2.9Mbps
Peak connection speed: 12 Mbps
Percentage above 5Mbps: 12%
Percentage above 2Mbps: 51%
Percentage below 256Kbps: 4%
Now, these figures only include people who connected to the Akamai network, so like any statistic it’s not going to be 100% accurate. But it is an indication of just how woeful our internet infrastructure currently is – we currently rank in at number 48 in the world for average download speeds. That puts us behind New Zealand who come in at 41.
It will be interesting to see if the NBN rollout over Q4 last year makes any impact when the next report is released in a few months time.
[Akamai]
Hugh
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 2:23 PMI think you should take these results with a bit of a grain of salt. The speed throughput is nothing to do with line speed or sync speed, but download speed from Akamai’s servers. So nothing to take into account other things that may be happening on your connection at the time (YouTube, VOD, Channel BT etc), which arguably is going to be higher here than in some other places due to the delays in getting shows locally.
Paul
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 2:31 PMI have a few concerns over the NBN:
Anyone know how much it will cost? Considering Telstra has allot to do with it – I am guessing it will be expensive – but most importantly is it going to have a download limit? Again Telstra has always had it’s head up it’s arse when it comes to download allowances and was one of the first to include uploads in the allowance
Should these basic questions not be answered before all of us pay for this to be rolled out?
I have switched from Optus cable to TPG ADSL – not that I wanted to leave Optus Cable – it’s just that I moved and Optus are no longer allowed to run new cable installs as far as I know.
I am over 3Ks from the exchange but still getting a decent and steady 1.8Mbit/s connection – which is better than I was getting on Optus – TPG is cheaper and unlimited – Bonus – however I hope the NBN does not push the likes of TPG out of the market.
MDolley
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 2:47 PMThe NBN is a wholesale product, which means if TPG want to sell an unlimited plan they should be able to.
opm881
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:18 PMI think you need to do a bit of research into the NBN, its rather obvious that you don’t know too much about it(that isnt meant to be offensive, just saying you don’t seem to know too much about it). The NBN is going to be a wholesale network, meaning you wont actually get your net from the NBN but from the same companies people get their net now. Telstra actually doesn’t have anything to do with the setup and such of the NBN, the company is simply using the pipes that the telstra cables are in now.
However, I am confused how you were getting less than 1.8MBit/s on cable….
Dean
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:21 PMI have a few concerns about your ADSL as ‘decent’ and ’1.8Mbit/s’ are not something I would be putting together in the same sentence. At 3Ks from the exchange you should be getting closer to 5Mbit/s.
As for your other questions, do some basic research and you will find they have all been answered.
Uncle Bob
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 2:41 PMYou can’t compare us fairly with most of the world, especially not Asia.
We have a massive land mass = massive infrastructure, with a tiny population.
They are the opposite, so its very easy and less costly to give everyone a better connection.
Will McI
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:05 PMI am very happy with the speeds of my telstra broadband service.
speedtest.net records that i am getting 35.32Mbit/s down and 1.13Mbit/s up.
So far, only Apple’s servers have used this speed, downloading at roughly 4Mb/s.
So if you live close to sydney cbd, telstra is worth it even if you do pay a little bit extra.
Nathan
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:06 PMummmm. Paul This is not a Telstra enterprise.
The NBN is going to be the same as Telestra before they were sold but as a wholesale company and government owned until it is sold off. The government has purchased a number of telstras assets to make this as simple as possible.
Also not being Telstra means things such as download limits and pricing will be up to the providers. This will create more competition as all providers will have access to high speed internet as opposed to those that lay the cables and choose if they wish to wholesale it.
Simon Reidy
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:12 PMWell I definitely find it depressing. I think I find it even more depressing to hear people think we don’t need any better.
The NBN needs to be rolled out as quickly as possible if we’re going to have any chance of being competitive on a global scale.
Chris Guerin
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:22 PMAt the site where I work, the whole precinct has a fibre backbone, with ADSL being split from the fibre where it enters the building, and gets fed into each individual apartment.
My connection speed at my office NEVER drops from at least 55mbps line speed.
However, my home connection is a bit different, I’ve just done a speedtest, and came back with 6.7mbps.
Pathetic really.
Andrew
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:48 PMHold on, Akamai… Aren’t they the guys who used to push that malware via Gain software? The software which hijacks your bandwidth and processor idle time to onsell to customers.
Danny
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 3:51 PMWhere do we need to be “competitive on a global scale”?
From our places of business, education centres and hospitals?
Or from our lounge rooms?
Chris’ office gets 55mbps but laments his home connection is 6mbps.
So, Simon, how will the NBN make Chris more competitive?
How has Korea’s connection statistics improved the livelihoods of its citizens? Are they more competitive? Are they using their extra bandwidth to help cure cancer? Brew better beer?
MDolley
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 4:10 PMSo because Chris has a fast speed at work we don’t need the NBN? Maybe Chris could work from home if his home internet was better, increasing his career opportunities?
At my office I have speeds of 17.53Mbps, but the upload speed is 0.84Mbps. Even with Annex M the upload speed would not be fast enough for me to offer certain services. Because of ADSL limitations my employer is forced to lease space in a fibre connected data centre.
Some people seem to think that the NBN supports just want fast porn downloads. That is not the case.
ozoneocean
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 4:37 PMTelstra broadband cable for me.
-the only time I’m down to 5 mbps is when I’m getting content from some international sites. Within Australia speeds vary according to where the content is coming from (obviously), but the top speed is something like 34 mbps and the medium range is between 15 and 9 mbps, because your download speed is only as fast as the slowest link in the chain.
Hopefully with NBN that won’t be an issue here anymore- with almost all sections of the chain having access to a high speed connection as a default.
Chemenski
Friday, January 28, 2011 at 7:46 PMNot surprised. Can’t even get ADSL2+ in my area XD
Darren
Saturday, January 29, 2011 at 12:42 AMThe problem is, that 5.8mbps speed is really only fully achievable when accessing local, Australian hosted Internet content. The pipelines to the US are high latency, resulting in much lower speed. The UK is even worse. The NBN won’t improve this either, rather it’ll just increase our Aussie-to-Aussie speeds. And let’s face it, australian Internet content pales in comparison to the stuff we use overseas. Social networks, YouTube, online gaming, etc are mostly hosted on foreign servers.
Caesar Wong
Monday, January 31, 2011 at 12:53 PMI think it is necessary to elaborate on exactly what content is served from Akamai’s servers. If things like iTunes off mobile connections were included then that would naturally account for the woefully low figures.