If you live in NSW, Australia’s consumer watchdog has good news for you. Its latest broadband report has found that on average, NSW residents have the highest download and upload speeds in the country, though there’s certainly disparity between urban and regional areas.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), NSW residents with a fixed-line NBN plan achieved 97.9% of their plan’s promised download speeds on average.
On the opposite side of the country, WA has been revealed as the worst performer, with homes on fixed-line NBN reaching 92.5% of their plan’s rated download speed on average, and only 80.7% of upload speeds.
That puts WA below the national average, along with Queensland and the ACT. Nationwide, fixed-line services are reaching promised download speeds 96.5% of the time during busy hours on average.
City vs country
The ACCC’s latest report shows that fixed-line download speeds across all hours have improved over the last four years, with urban areas reaching 98.2% of plan speeds in February 2022, compared to 85.7% in November 2018.
During the same time period, those in regional areas saw their expected download speeds improve by almost the same amount, from 83.7% to 95.2%, but the number still puts them behind urban areas in terms of quality.
Upload speeds only sees the gap widen, with urban areas achieving 85.3% of plan speed during all hours, and regional areas clocking in at 80.1%.
Exetel keeps its crown, MyRepublic slips
In the consumer watchdog’s previous broadband report, Exetel outperformed Optus to snatch the crown for the best average download speed by NBN provider. The June 2022 findings show Exetel is still holding onto its lead, beating its advertised plan speeds by 2.4% during the peak busy hours, and 3.4% across all times.
Exetel was the only provider of those monitored to exceed its promised plan speeds during the evening hours, though Optus wasn’t far behind. Its NBN plans reached 99.6% of its rated average download speed during the peak usage period, and exceeded it by 0.7% during all hours.
MyRepublic had the poorest performance among the telcos monitored, with its plans reaching 84.4% of its advertised plan speeds during the busy hours on average, and 92.5% across all times.
This shows a drop in MyRepublic’s performance compared to previous reports, as the telco performed exceptionally well in this measurement for the March 2022 report, with 99.1% of plan speed reached in the peak period, and 99.8% for all hours.
The ACCC’s report also finds that MyRepublic was often unable to deliver on its advertised speed claim for its NBN 50 and NBN 100 plans. As shown in the graph above, MyRepublic reached 76% of its advertised speed during the busiest hour, and 89.4% across all busy hours – note that these figures exclude underperforming services.
When examining the proportion of busy hours where advertised speed was achieved, the ACCC found MyRepublic was only able to do so 20% of the time. Again, underperforming and impaired services are excluded from this measurement.
These results show a significant decline in MyRepublic’s performance since the December 2021 report, when the provider exceeded its advertised speed in both the busiest hour and all busy hours, and achieved its advertised speed 98% of the time.
Speaking to TechRadar, a spokesperson for MyRepublic Australia said the company is looking to improve. “Obviously, we are disappointed with the results. We are looking into it as our customers deserve better. We endeavour to get this right.”
