RAW DATA: ISPs' evening performance down for all TrueNet tests

Speed (File Download Performance)

For TrueNet's speed tests each panelist's probe regularly downloads a 1MB or 2MB file from Auckland, Wellington, Dallas and Sydney.

International tests represent the median hourly speed of each probe from Dallas, and Sydney.  National results are based on the best Auckland, or Wellington download speed from each test run, to compute a median hourly speed for each panelist's connection. 

International File Download Speed

TrueNet tests download speeds from our servers in Dallas & Sydney to measure performance to our international neighbours.

We ensure the download file is not held in New Zealand (cached), so that the test truly measures international performance. The speed test results selected are taken at 9pm, in the evening busy period, when congestion is likely to be worst.

Fibre & Cable

Snap achieved the fastest speed to Sydney, with Vodafone and MyRepublic close behind. Spark 30Mb/s service showed improved speed to both Dallas and Sydney.

In contrast, Orcon was slower at both Fibre speeds. This result is directly impacted by slower results in the evening busy period - Orcon's speed to the US and Australia in off-peak hours is up at levels reported in past months.

ADSL & VDSL

Vodafone and Slingshot maintained best results in VDSL and were also best in combined speeds in ADSL to Sydney & Dallas. Snap jumped to best ADSL speed to Sydney, but their Dallas speed is slower. 

NZ File Download Speed

Comparing performance by time-of-day is important as it shows the service degradation when everyone is using the internet during the peak hours of 8pm to 10pm.  TrueNet uses the best of a pair of Auckland and Wellington download tests to calculate the median results by hour over the month for each monitored connection.  We take the average of all median results with each ISP for each hour.

Fibre - Cable - VDSL Comparison

The Time of Day (ToD) performance on the higher speed broadband offerings is compared in Chart 6.

Regular readers will be familiar with the evening speed dip seen on 100Mb/s Cable remaining above 100Mb/s, but this month a wider phenomenon is apparent. The 9pm speed of Vodafone Cable 50 & 100Mb/s services converge at just under 40Mb/s.  Down from 110Mb/s at the bottom of the dip in January.

Snap 100Mb/s Fibre provided a consistent ToD performance, while at the other extreme, Orcon 100Mb/s Fibre experienced a dip in the evening.

30M Fibre services did not show any ToD extremes, with consistent performances throughout the day for all ISPs. 

TrueNet has fibre panelists on 8 service speeds at present. An alternative, simplified way to look at results is to compare ISP performance against the advertised service speed.

In Chart 7, Spark and Snap Fibre services show very little Time of Day change, with Spark providing very close to advertised speed throughout the day.

Vodafone Cable, averaged across the 15, 50, and 100Mb/s services drops below 60% of advertised speed during the evening, we notice that typically the 70% point causes TrueNet's panelist's to complain of a degraded service.

MyRepublic and Vodafone Fibre average below 80% of  advertised speed throughout the month, both slowing down in the evening, but not as much as seen in the Orcon Fibre speed.

DSL Performance by Time of Day (ToD)

VDSL File Download Speed

There are a spread of results this month with Bigpipe leading the way with a consistent 95%  of advertised speed in the evening, but all other ISPs have markedly reduced ToD performance from previous months.

Spark and Snap stay close to 90% in the evening.

Vodafone, Slingshot and Orcon have very similar results in the evening,  dropping to 80% of maximum speeds.

Chart 8: VDSL File Download Speed by Time of Day

ADSL File Download Speed

A two-tier result, with consistent performances for 5 ISPs in Chart 9, but signs of  congestion at 9PM in the Vodafone, Orcon, and Slingshot results. Again these 3 ISPs have very similar ToD performance, as per the VDSL results in Chart 8 above. 

Upload Speed Performance

Upload speed is important to users sending fairly large amounts of data through the internet, or loading files to the Cloud.

TrueNet's upload test sends a 1MB file to our Wellington server, and records the results using a similar method to the download tests, but measured from Wellington only.  Australian panelists connections test to our Sydney server. 

By Technology

The Upload speed results are similar to recent months, though 50Mb/s services were slower, and a very small reduction in 10Mb/s fibre speed was observed this month. Both of these are related to Time of Day performance (see Chart 11), lowering the average across all hours.

Upload Speed By ISP

This month the speed of Fibre and cable ISPs is given by Time of Day (ToD). As with the other performance measures this month, upload is also showing signs of evening congestion. 

In the past, there has been little variation in upload by Time of Day but there is evidence in Chart 11 that whatever is affecting Downloads, and Webpage download times, is also affecting uploads. 

Curiously, Snap's 20Mb/s service is quite constant, while the 50Mb/s and 10Mb/s services show a distinct evening dip.

Spark and Vodafone’s 10Mb/s Fibre upload services were able to achieve very consistent performance throughout the day, matching the download performance of these products.

Quarterly Feature - LFC File Download Speed Comparison

This month's quarterly report looks at the download performance of LFCs associated with the UltraFast Broadband fibre roll-out. With all the recent interest in online video content, and possible congestion at peak times, UFB participants have thus far appeared largely unaffected - perhaps because of the newness of the platform and lighter loading. Given the further signs of evening congestion for capacity this month, we see that Fibre is not immune.

Please bear in mind that LFC's are only partly responsible for performance. In general the LFC and ISP share responsibility for overall performance, since a restriction, or problem in either network will impact the connected users. Therefore, these results need to be considered in conjunction with each ISPs fibre results, and their results in other technology areas.

As of April, there are 12 ISPs represented across the 3 main LFCs .

The ISPs represented per LFC are:

Chorus:   FXNetworks, Mynxnet, MyRepublic, Orcon, Slingshot, Snap, Spark, ThePacific, Trustpower, Vodafone, Voyager, Xnet

Enable:    MyRepublic,  Orcon, Snap, Spark

UFF:        MyRepublic, Orcon, Snap, Spark, Trustpower, Vodafone, Voyager

Chart 12 below gives the best speed, averaged over the month, per LFC. Compared to the last report in January, the speed of Enable & UFF 100Mb/s service is up, while Chorus is down. This does not mean that Chorus averages slower speeds across all panelists. The low speeds of the many less common ISPs, not included in monthly reports, impacts the Chorus result more than 10%.  

UFF allows peak wholesale speeds a little higher than "advertised" service speed.  Chorus and Enable also have this service, but we see little evidence of its impact.

The results for the 30Mb/s services is much closer. Enable and Chorus speeds are up by a small amount from the January report, with all 3 running close to, or over, the advertised service speed.

LFC Speed by Time of Day

The Time of Day results for each ISP as a percentage of the service speed is shown in Chart 13.  Unlike previous reports, there is evidence that congestion is affecting users on the UFB.  UFF has the most noticeable Time of Day impact, with Chorus less so.  

Click on chart13 and it will link to a Chart showing ISP breakdown within the LFCs, and also as a total group. The ISP breakdown shows a mixture of ToD results within each LFC.  This suggests that congestion is not systemic within the LFCs, and is likely to be in the ISPs or at the handover link. 

In this months webpage download ToD analysis, Orcon, Vodafone, and Slingshot have a dip in evening speeds, and these are also reflected in the LFC results. 

Another observation for Chorus is that the overall speed of the smaller ISPs in the "Other" category runs slower than the named ISPs.