Benchmarker defends Oz broadband report
- 17 February, 2009 14:33
- Comments 12
A telco analyst firm responsible for a scathing report on Internet access in Australia has defended its claims amid a barrage of criticism.
The Epitiro 2008 Australian Internet Performance Index report claimed Australians receive 65.5 percent of advertised Internet speeds over local TCP connections, and only 53.7 percent of touted ADSL2+ speeds.
Overseas Internet connectivity was worse still, with speeds plummeting to a quarter of those advertised, and ADSL2+ dropping as low as 6.8 percent. Ping times for gamers to servers in the US, the UK and Japan were below acceptable levels. The report concluded Australian broadband may struggle with overseas connectivity.
The company which supplies benchmarking data to telcos around the world, installed “automated reporting agents” in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane that logged Internet speeds from October to December last year for new standard customer accounts setup without the knowledge of ISPs. The report covered Web browsing, streaming media, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and online gaming.
The report gave Telstra the top spot for deliverable Internet speeds, followed by TPG, iiNet, Netspace, and AAPT, while Optus came in eighth spot, behind Westnet.
Local telecommunications analyst Paul Budde said the report should be taken “with a grain of salt” due to variables that may skew results, but conceded broadband speeds in Australia are poor.
“There so many uncertainties that influence these kind of surveys, like geography, and the quality of local exchanges and in-house networks,” Budde said.
“Depending on where you measure it, download speeds could vary a lot, even between suburbs. This is so important because two people on the same service could have hugely different Internet speeds.
“The top five providers in the report would rank about the same across most surveys...If HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coaxial) cable was tested, I would suspect Optus would rank as high as Telstra.”
Epitro Australasia managing director Mike Cranna said enough good data exists to produce accurate results -- despite the network uncertainties -- for a decisive results.
“A very clear picture emerges across different regions and different customer-premises equipment. There is a degree of homogeneity in both networks and customer-premises equipment that means it is possible to see the trends despite these variables,” Cranna said.
“You do not need to measure every endpoint in a network to understand its performance; any network engineer knows this, and it is a fact intrinsic to the concept of a network.
“You do not need to measure e-mail to every household to know the e-mail platform has fallen over! Similarly, to test for kidney failure, you test the kidney; it's not necessary to test every cell in the body.”
Cranna said the fibre networks Budde referred to were not tested because of limited coverage. He said it does measure HFC networks but did not publish the results because the technology is not readily available.
The firm tests data network speeds for synchronisation, cached and non-cached HTTP downloads, DNS, ping and packet loss, and has separate procedures for VoIP and video. Tests are run from laboratories in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Variables are measured from the same rack and exchange.
Some 3000 agents used to measure speeds are distributed across the country which Cranna said provides for a “very clear picture of the overall performance of ISPs”. Statistics on variables such as customer-premises equipment gathered by the agents can be measured against laboratory results.
Epitiro reported last month that broadband speeds had “small but significant” improvments from Q3 to Q4 last year.
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Comments
LogicPTK
Well seriously:
"TELL ME
Well seriously:
"TELL ME SOMETHING WE HAVEN'T KNOWN FOR YEARS"
Good luck getting any competitive speeds or services without changing the management method of the industry.
Companies only supply the services if forced or regulated. And neither is true...
james_whatsit
barrage of critisism?
who the hell is critisizing them.
the report sounds very accurate.
in darwin the speed (btw. the interchange was upgraded 6 months ago) is at about 20%
(darwin is worse than larger capital cities, but still...
Anonymous
Incorrect report
And where pray tell do you get you figures from when you claim people dont get the advertised speed? If someone advertises 'upto 24M, but the average is 10M' what figure do you use? You do not quote where your data comes from, so your report is a total waste of time. You may be using incorrect figures to start with for all anyone knows. And i'll be honest, everyone iv spoken to thinks you are.
The Hurricane
Yeah, this report is pretty damm acurate.
Come on FTTH NBN or I'll be ticked off, we we could also use some more international links after PIPE finishes off their current project.
Anonymous
IF YOU ONLY KNEW THE TRUTH!
Telstra manipulates the entire industry and bullies all other competitors to make life difficult in every way.
Telstra has been bashing this country up the bum for years. If people really knew the things Telstra gets up to there would be a national uproar.
Telstra activley delays access to exchanges by other carriers to stiffle any growth.
Did you know an Australian company is the biggest manufacturer of a technology that extends DSL connections up to 20kms from the exchange. This technology is used all over the world by other carriers. But guess what, it's not used here because Telstra blocked it's use on its network.
Why you ask? because they want to force you to take up their 21Mbps NextG rubish and stick you with the charges. This also ensures that the other carriers are excluded as they cant compete with the nextG technology.
My appreciation to the new minister who kicked Telstra out of the NBN tender. The sooner the other carriers get some traction over Telstra the better off all Australians will be.
We Australians forget that Australians owned the telephone exchanges and the cable in the ground. Then we privatised our own public resource and put the Telstra rope around our own necks.......
Reece
sif theres anything to critize
Any gamer (well anyone that has basic understanding of online data usage) would agree with this report. The problem is it isnt going to change. It makes more sence (apparently) to slowly upgrade, spending as much money as possible on the way and at the same time keeping tech below the curve. Perhaps if the bohemeth that is telstra was divided, way back when the Gov decided create some competition, so that the infrastructure was seperate to sales they wouldn't have so much trouble implementing some real technology, maybe we should be happy with the sludgepond we have.
NBN.. why would we spend so much money and not aim to build the best network? If your going to do something, do it right.
Anonymous
Unless Epitiro have moved Australia closer to Japan, the US and the UK, or alternatively, discovered a way to make light travel faster through optical fibre, they'll find that it ain't possible for "ping times" on gaming and VoIP to ever reach acceptable levels.
Their conclusion on that point is nothing new, and the situation is impossible to rectify.
Anonymous
Pings
So if pings are low to Japan, US, where is the report that says Japan / US Is a broadband Backwater because I can say with confidence that their Pings to Australian, or Europe are no better.
Of course Telstra delivers the advertised speeds - other than 8mb and 24mbit, the majority of their customers are on capped plans at 256k/512k/1.5mbit. If you aren't close enough to achieve the full speed you can't have the product.
Uncapped products such as up to 8mbit and 24mbit plans are in a league of their own. The only measure that counts in uncapped products is the quality of the copper, not the location or provider, or suburb, or country, ot the source of the download. Sure, these things are limiting factors but the copper sets up the maximum achievable speed.
If the report showed which providers exhibit 'congestion' between the subscriber and the Internets, then this would be quite a useful thing to know.
Testing a whole bunch of providers access to US data is pointless - there's only 2 cables that go there!
Anonymous
I bloody knew it - I run cable through OPTUS and have done so for years...the pings to servers and the packetloss have been bad for years no matter where I moved.
I dunno - I think they should charge only on the quality of the service....not the maximum speed it can do...they you will never ever see.
I think I will jump to telstra at some point. Yes they do charge upload, but at least you are getting closer to the speeds they advertise.
Anonymous
Any excuse to trot out that tired old anti-Telstra rhetoric eh? Where, in your rant, have you addressed anything written in the article? Anyone with the ability to think for themselves would realise that the issues facing telecommunications in Oz are not as simplistic as the anti-Telstra fanatics would have you believe. It constantly amazes me that people fall for this crap.
Anonymous
Barrage Of Criticism?
Where is it? Every news story just parrots the vague and generalised misstatements contained in the EPITIRO report. All the media reports refer to criticism but none prints any criticism.
How about doing a little Journalism...
TechNoFear
I don't get the minimum speed
I used to have ADSL2+ at 3Mb/s two years ago.
Now I am lucky to reach 1Mb/s on the same line.
Why?
Because there is a fault on my line that Telstra refuses to repair and is degrading each time it rains.
My choice (according to the TIO) is pay for a service that can not be supplied OR go back to dial-up.
As I design IPC based asset protection systems for heavy haul vehicles, broadband is a requirement for me to work.
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