The ACCC's latest National Broadband Network Wholesale Market Indicators Report shows the most popular NBN speed tier is 25Mbps, accounting for just over 54 per cent of services.
Image: janeb13
Covering the period ending 31 December 2017, the report states services connected to the NBN increased from just over 3 million to nearly 3.5 million in the December quarter, a rise of 14 per cent.
The count by download data transfer rate:
- 12Mbps: 1,022,494
- 25Mbps: 1,884,662
- 50Mbps: 158,959
- 100Mbps: 400,848
- 250Mbps: 159
- 500Mbps: 11
- 1,000Mbps: 173
- (Total : 3,467,306)
NBN Co was contracted to supply a total of 5,385 gigabits per second of CVC capacity in the reporting period (up from 3,452 in the September quarter).
CVC stands for Connectivity Virtual Circuit. It's a charge that ISPs pay to NBN Co. to cover the size of the "bandwidth pipe" for an area. The more CVC an ISP pays on average per user, the better the performance should be, particularly during peak periods.
In December, NBN Co made a couple of changes relating to pricing after pressure from retailers. This appears to have resulted in a significant increase in CVC acquired per user compared to the September 2017 quarter; jumping from 1.11 megabits per second (Mbps) to 1.53 Mbps since the September 2017 quarter. That works out to 37% more bandwidth per user.
“We are pleased to see such a large jump in the CVC acquired by retailers from NBN Co this quarter. With this level of CVC consumers will have faster broadband speeds and hopefully less congestion during peak evening periods,” said ACCC Chairman Rod Sims.
The Register's Simon Sharwood isn't quite so optimistic, pointing out there are plenty of other non-NBN bottlenecks and only five of Australia's NBN ISPs are connected to all 121 points of interconnection (POIs) connecting their networks to the NBN.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has been keeping a closer eye on NBN related issues.
In November last year, the ACCC announced an inquiry into NBN wholesale standards after complaints relating to the NBN increased 160 per cent in the last financial year. The results of that inquiry should be known at the end of this year.
An October Essential poll indicated 52% of Australians think their NBN internet service is better than their previous connection, while 45% think it is about the same or worse. 7% believed it was much worse. With such a large percentage feeling the NBN is no better (or is worse), it's little wonder then that a significant number of Australians are still looking for NBN alternatives.
