Higher speed services are showing signs of congestion for panelists on smaller ISPs, evidenced by speed reductions in the evening busy hours. Larger ISPs are still performing well, and appear to have congestion under control.
(TrueNet is contracted to the Commerce Commission to monitor broadband performance. It uses a network of probes attached to 400 volunteers' internet connections to rate ISPs — Editor.)
Higher speed services, 100Mb/s and above, are showing signs of congestion for panelists on smaller ISPs, evidenced by speed reductions in the evening busy hours. Larger ISPs are still performing well, and appear to have congestion under control.
NZ website download times increased across all 2Degrees technologies compared to January, despite staying the same for Australian websites.
Spark 100Mb/s panelist tests have reached a sample size large enough to be reported separately, they have until recently been include in "Other ISPs". Spark results were better than many of the smaller ISPs, so "Other ISPs" as a group without Spark panelists now show a worse result.
Summary of Performance Measures
Spark 100Mb/s Fibre panelist numbers have grown sufficiently to be included in the high speed fibre results. Previously their figures were included in "Other ISPs", and hence there are a number of changes now that Spark has been removed from that pool of panelists.
Spark 100Mb/s service performed well in Webpage Download Times, but wasn't as strong in File Download Speed tests (national & international).
Spark 20Mb/s Upload panelists achieved well over the advertised speed, leaving only Orcon with a higher average upload speed in the 20Mb/s service.
ADSL and VDSL continued with good Time of Day (ToD) performances. Flip had an excellent ADSL ToD result even after dropping to 98% of maximum speed, from 100% last month.
There is evidence of increasing congestion, in the evening period, for very high speed 100Mb/s and 200Mb/s fibre services, but lower speed services are unaffected.
Table 1: Summary of Performance Measures
(Click to zoom)
Webpage Download Time
Methodology
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Responsive website browsing is valued by most Internet users, and conversely, slow-loading sites can be extremely frustrating. TrueNet tests Internet browsing by downloading a selection of Live Webpages from NZ, Australia, and the USA, measuring the time to fully download all files on the page. These pages are changed from time-to-time. This month there are 7 NZ pages, 4 Australian, and 4 USA pages. The charts in this section have three points for each ISP entry showing the Min Hour (minimum time to download a webpage); the Max Hour (maximum time to download a webpage); and the Median of all hours. The best ISP has a low median, and a short arrow showing the spread between peak and off-peak performance. We download 7 popular NZ websites from each connection, and compare the average time taken to download all websites. This test replicates daily activity for many people, and we group the websites into regions, NZ, Australia and USA, so that readers can compare ISPs based on their own preferences. |
NZ Live Webpages
ADSL: There were minor improvements in iiNet / TPG this month; Slingshot had an improved median, but their variation is still wider than other ISPs, so during peak periods taking the longest of any NZ ISP to download the chosen websites. Overall, February shows a greater range of Webpage Download Times in ADSL compared to other technologies, and previous months.
VDSL: Last month the spread between best to worst was minimal, but this month 2Degrees and Voyagerboth had significant increases in their Webpage Download Time, leaving their performance well behind the rest.
Fibre: With sufficient growth in panelists, Spark has been added to this chart, and is in 2nd position, close to Orcon. For 2Degrees Webpage Download Times have increased to become the longest of any named ISPs in the 100Mb/s, & 30Mb/s Fibre services. Other ISPs 100Mb/s services almost doubled the average time to download the webpages after the removal of Spark.
Cable: Vodafone Cable website download time changes are very small, 100Mb/s cable performance slipped, while the 50Mb/s service improved.
Chart 1: Live NZ Webpage Download Time - in seconds
Australian Live Webpages
| We download 4 popular Australian websites from each connection, and compare the average time taken to download all websites. This test replicates daily activity for many people, but to provide the ability for readers to compare between ISPs based on their own preferences, we group the websites into regions, NZ, Australia and USA. |
ADSL: There has been a a slight improvement this month, but with some changes to the order of ISPs because Spark improved their performance from about 0.6s to 0.4s. However Flip, and BigPipe also improved leaving the rest well behind.
VDSL: With little change this month, Orcon, Spark and Vodafone are currently the best ISPs for Australian Webpage Download Time.
Fibre: Orcon has the best Australian website download times. As with NZ Webpages, Spark is now being reported separately, and has a good result, but that separation has exposed "Other ISPs" which now show a much worse performance when compared with named ISPs.
Cable: Not much change.
Chart 2: Live Australian Webpage Download Time - in seconds
US Live Webpages
| We download 4 popular US websites from each connection, and compare the average time taken to download all websites. This test replicates daily activity for many people, but to provide the ability for readers to compare between ISPs based on their own preferences, we group the websites into regions, NZ, Australia and USA. |
Slingshot is the best ADSL for average US website download times. There is a small but significant improvement in ADSL this month, with Spark improving to catch up with Orcon, who also improved a little.
A small improvement is evident in Vodafone Cable 50Mb/s service.
Chart 3: Live USA Webpage Download Time - in seconds
Speed (File Download Performance)
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For TrueNet's speed tests each panelist's probe regularly downloads a 1MB or 2MB file from Auckland, Wellington, Dallas and Sydney. The faster the connection, the larger the file we need to download to ensure that the maximum speed is reached during our test. 100Mb/s connections easily reach full speed before 2MB of data is downloaded. Slower connections can test accurately with much smaller files. Our tests on Satellite, Wireless and ADSL can tolerate a file size of just 300k. New Zealand tests take the best of each test run from Auckland or Wellington. International tests take the result from each test run from Dallas, or Sydney. Our reported measure is the average hourly speed as a percentage of the best hourly speed in the month, this measures the ISP performance rather than the technology performance. |
Speeds from the USA are considerably reduced this month for the previous best ISPs, but some of those who were slow last month have improved, so now almost all ISPs are achieving close to 10Mb/s. MyRepublic and "Other ISPs" are the slowest, barely achieving 5Mb/s.
International File Download Speed
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TrueNet tests File 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 results are selected from the 8pm to 10pm evening busy period, when any congestion is most likely to be observed. |
Fibre & Cable
Fibre: Sydney results show a significant increase in speed for MyRepublic and Other ISPs on 100Mb/s, while Spark entered the 100Mb/s results as one of the slowest.
USA results were down for Vodafone 100Mb/s, and 2Degrees 30Mb/s to match other ISPs improving results.
Vodafone Cable had a significant increase in 50Mb/s cable speed from both locations, with over 10Mb/s increase from Sydney.
Chart 4: Fibre, Cable File Download Speed - Dallas & Sydney
ADSL & VDSL (Copper Connections)
| Copper connections (ADSL & VDSL) have a speed that is dependent on the distance between the home modem, and the exchange equipment which means that ISPs do not have any influence on the peak speed of each connection. To overcome this limitation, the Australia, and USA speeds are referenced to the average NZ download speed of the respective ISPs. The speed reported is from the 8pm-10pm evening period. |
ADSL: Vodafone, Slingshot, Spark and Orcon all achieved better than 80% of their NZ speeds for Australian File Download Speeds. The big change in File Download speed from the US, is reflected in Flip's fall from nearly 40% to 20%.
VDSL results had minimal change.
Chart 5: ADSL, VDSL File Download Speed - Dallas & Sydney
NZ File Download Speed
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Comparing performance by time-of-day is important as it shows the service degradation when everyone is using the Internet during the evening hours of 8pm to 10pm. TrueNet uses the best of a pair of Auckland and Wellington download tests to calculate the median NZ results by hour over the month for each monitored connection. We take the average of all median results with each ISP for each hour. A poor result typically shows the line drop below 90%, which usually occurs in the busy period between 7pm and 10pm, ii.e.if this is true, the average user for that ISP is getting less than 90% of their line capability. |
Technology Comparison
Congestion has arrived again, with a very noticeable decrease in evening performance compared to last couple months performance which exceeded 90%. 100Mb/s Cable, 100Mb/s Fibre and 200Mb/s Fibre all have deep dips around 9-10pm as seen in Chart 6. Last time we saw these dips, Netflix had just been launched, we are not aware of the cause of these apparent congestion issues, this may be due to reported growth in streaming (Netflix, Lightbox etc).
Chart 6: Fibre, Cable, and Copper (DSL) Download Speed
Fibre & Cable ISP Comparison
The best product was Vodafone Cable which exceeded 110% of Advertised Speed.
MyRepublic results continue to dip severely in the busy hour, but where last month it was 65%, this month it is below 50%. It is prevalent on all panelist connections whatever the provided speed.
Vodafone Fibre speeds have improved a small amount, Other ISPs and Spark are down a little bit.
Chart 7: Fibre & Cable Performance as Percentage of Advertised Speed
DSL Performance by Time of Day (ToD)
High Speed Copper (VDSL) File Download Speed
Most ISPs are tightly clustered between 94% - 99% of Maximum Speed.
BigPipe improved a lot (7%) this month in VDSL Time of Day performance with only Vodafone remaining at last month's level of congestion. Orcon also improved on last month by 4%. Spark was the Best ISP for VDSL in February.
Chart 8: VDSL File Download Speed by Time of Day
Low Speed Copper (ADSL) File Download Speed
Another month of solid results for ADSL Time of Day (ToD) performance, with a spread between 92% - 98% of Maximum Speed. Flip remained the best ISP for ADSL with 98% evening speed cmpared to maximum speed.
Most NZ ISPs stayed at or above 96% of maximum speed at all times. iiNet / TPG improved, while Bigpipe still had the same evening dip, but over a shorter period.
Chart 9: ADSL File Download Speed by Time of Day
Upload Speed - Performance
| Upload speed is important to users sending 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. |
In general Panelists' upload speed results reflect the advertised speed of the Service they have purchased, although some lucky VDSL customers are not being restricted to the 10Mb/s apparently originally set by Chorus. As the new band-plan is impacting more users, the average upload speed for VDSL is now decreasing though.
By Technology
Very little change from last month, just a small 5% decrease in VDSL.
Chart 10: Upload Performance by Technology
Upload Time of Day Performance - by ISP
Spark enters the 20Mb/s reporting for the first time, just below Orcon, the best ISP for 20Mb/s fibre upload, but like all named ISPs well above the advertised speed. Other ISPs have previously included Spark panelists, but the removal of Spark from this pool has shifted the combined "Other ISPs" well below the named ISPs listed in the chart.
Chart 11: Fibre & Cable ToD Upload Speed by ISP
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