Over Half of Australians Don’t Know Their NBN Speed
With over 50 percent Australians now able to use the NBN or National Broadband Network, NBN Co has found out that around 76 percent don’t even know what internet speed they are getting.
According to NBN Co, around 35 percent of the public also didn’t know that they could pick a speed level that best suit their needs when they bought their nbn package from a retail service provider.
Bill Morrow, NBN Co chief executive said, “We have been listening to the community’s feedback and are committed to providing answers to the questions Australians want to know about the nbn network and the factors which influence the speed of their internet service.”
NBN Co has now decided to launch an information campaign that would describe people what they need to do to transfer to this new technology.
“We are seeing great demand for fast broadband across the country as there are currently around three in four Australians who choose to connect after this period,” he said.
The information was confirmed during The Advocate’s live question & answer session with Russell Kelly, NBN Co’s corporate affairs spokesman.
According to Mr Russell Kelly, most people have not even looked into what speed they are on as well as what they are getting.
He also said that people can easily test the speed of connection any time by using a program that is freely available on the internet.
“Check at peak times and a couple of times during the week.”
“Make sure it’s within the parameters of what you paid for,” he said, adding that peak time was from 4pm to 9.30-10pm, on weekdays.
“When you pay for a kilogram of something you get a kilogram. But (the nbn) is more like a car. It can go up to 250 kilometres an hour but you hardly ever drive it at that speed.”
“It’s the same with the internet – you can get up to that speed but it fluctuates.”
Mr Russell Kelly also confirmed that NBN Co was required to provide upto the maximum speed only once a day for a second.
He said the nbn came in 4 speed levels. People will be able to buy any of those speeds from a retail service provider.
The slowest speed was likely to be the cheapest, at twelve Megabits per second download speed, as well as one megabit per second upload speed. Other speed levels were 25 megabits per second download speed as well as 5 megabits per second upload speed, 25 / 10, 50 / 20 as well as 100 / 40.
The speed that you actually got depended on many factors, like the number of users in one household, time of use, the plan bought as well as the type of connection. People should talk to their retailers first before taking any decision.