RAW DATA: TrueNet October 2015 Broadband Report - Vodafone Cable the Standout Performer

(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.)

Performance of Vodafone 100Mb/s Cable download is now equivalent, if not better than competitive 100Mb/s UFB fibre services.  On October the 2nd, Vodafone Cable fixed their major network problems that were evident since March (NetFlix launched it's services in March) when speeds dropped from 100Mb/s to below 5Mb/s for many customers.

Other improvements include reduction in congestion on almost all remaining products and ISPs, to a level not seen before as ISPs are clearly investing in sufficient capacity to meet demand.  Orcon, MyRepublic and some Other ISPs have more work to do, but all have improved.  

Copper services show a very different trend with Vodafone now requiring more investment to resolve congestion after months of good performances and Slingshot continuing their major improvement from last month to now lie within the leading bunch of ISPs.

NZ Broadband Performance Improvements
Without TrueNet's collection of performance statistics, gathered over the last 4 years and published each month, the level and speed of improvement in NZ Broadband performance may not have occurred.  Transparency encourages NZ ISPs to continuously improve their performance across all technologies, increasing competition for the benefit of consumers. It ensures regular investment by ISPs endeavouring to maintain their market share.  

The big gap in performance between the NZ ISPs, and the one Australian ISP that TrueNet collects data from, is a strong indicator of the benefits resulting from making NZ Broadband performance information publicly available. 

NOTE: In Australia there is neither collection, nor publishing of any ISP performance measures (note the results of iiNet, an Australian ISP in Charts1 & 2 above).

Summary of Performance Measures
Following on from last month, October results show further substantial improvements in ISP speeds over the high demand evening period. Vodafone's Cable services show major improvements in speed performance this month following on from an improved September. The change in Vodafone is so significant, and sudden that it indicates a recent large investment in their Cable network. The 9PM speed for 100Mb/s and 50Mb/s Cable services averaged 109Mb/s and 40Mb/s respectively this month; speeds not achieved since around February of this year.  

Along with this change there were improved International Speed results for Orcon and 2 Degrees, as well as Vodafone Cable.  

Since last month, improvements in speed across most ISP's copper services can be seen in the Live Webpage results. Specifically, their was very little variation in performance for downloading USA Webpages. Slingshot's time of day improvement on copper services has continued on from last month establishing more consistency in their performance.

 Note that the NZ Webpages used this month have changed, and therefore the average download times should not be compared directly to previous months. 

(Click to zoom)

Webpage Download Time
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.

NZ Live Webpages

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. 

The selection of NZ websites changed this month (see Glossary). That, along with improvements in general time of day performance (see Speed section below), means it is difficult to know which changes may have affected Webpage download times. Due to the change in NZ Webpages, average load times should not be directly compared with September charts, however by chance they are very similar.

Vodafone Cable has had a wide variation between Min and Max hour since March 2015, but this month was not dstinguishable from the best VDSL and all Fibre services, and the 100Mb/s cable shows almost no variation at all.

Vodafone and Slingshot VDSL stands out in spread between the Min or Median hour performance, and that of the Max Hour.  Orcon had the lowest download time of VDSL ISPs in our sample this month. Note that both Orcon and Slingshot are owned by M2.

Vodafone ADSL improved such that iiNet (Australian ISP) now has the longest download time in October, as would be expected when downloading New Zealand websites.

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.

Fibre providers all had fairly similar median levels, with the exception of "Other ISPs" at 100Mb/s looking quite separate. Orcon and MyRepublic have higher Min to Max variation than the other Fibre ISPs shown, suggesting some variation by time of day.

Vodafone Cable service has dramatically improved their Webpage load times, as well as Min to Max variation.

ADSL: "Other ISPs" are doing well -  equal or better than most of the named ISPs in the chart - representing a notable change from September

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.

Compared to other Live Webpage charts we have published, there is minimal difference between Median, Min and Max hours. Also in contrast, "Other ISPs" had the longest download times for US Webpages, instead of being amongst the best as in the Australian and NZ Webpage charts above. The relative order of ISPs in each technology has not changed this month.

Our measurements regularly show that Vodafone achieves good speed from the US, and now with evening congestion reduced, 100Mb/s cable now has the lowest download times across all technlogies. Vodafone VDSL is also quickest amongst the VDSL providers.

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.  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.

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 results are selected from the 8pm to 10pm evening busy period, when any congestion is most likely to be observed.

Fibre & Cable

Fibre & Cable speed test results from Australia and the US are given in Chart 4, showing significant improvements in October.

Orcon & 2Degrees 100Mb/s Fibre improved 100%, and 50% respectively to record the fastest speeds to Sydney, both approaching 60Mb/s. MyRepublic had the best speeds in August and September, maintaining similar speeds this month so Orcon & 2Degrees improved to surpass them.

Vodafone's Fibre speed from Sydney also increased over 25% compared to last month. Cable speeds from Sydney improved as well, though the speed is still significantly less than Vodafone Fibre services. 

Vodafone Cable and 100Mb/s Fibre achieved best speeds from the USA, and here the speed from the two Vodafone technologies are roughly comparable.

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.

There were some notable improvements in copper connections this month. Slingshot and 2Degrees VDSL improved to over 60% of the average NZ speed from Sydney.  

The major change in copper performance was Orcon ADSL which improved from last at 60% last month, to top at almost 90% this month.

Vodafone and Slingshot had the best speeds from USA again, but there was no increase this month, implying there are different mechanisms limiting speeds to the two countries, and that the evening busy period has not stonrgly affected download speeds from the US. 

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 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.

Technology Comparison

The Time of Day performance of DSL, Cable and Fibre services are compared in Chart 6. The result is indexed to the hour with maximum speed for each technology.

October saw a major improvement in evening performance across Cable and Fibre services at 100Mb/s and above. Visually, compare Chart 6 with the inset of last months results (Chart 6a). 100Mb/s and 200Mb/s services still dip below 90% of Maximum speed, but is minor compared to variations seen in the equivalent September chart.

Fibre - Cable ISP Comparison

Cable & Fibre providers are compared based on Advertised speed in Chart 7.

As highlighted in the Technology chart above, Vodafone Cable shows a major improvement in Time of Day performance from about 55% average to 105%, ie faster than advertised speed.  Vodafone Cable connections are now achieving advertised speeds considerably better than Fibre connections on UFB.

In Chart 7, 2Degrees, Orcon, Vodafone and "Other ISPs" Fibre performance is up this month, both in overall percentage, and variation in the busy period.  

2Degrees and Spark results are almost identical. 

The dip at 9PM has reduced in the Orcon result, and the average speed indexed to advertised speed also improved, despite the remaining dip.  

MyRepublic results continue to show wide variation in performance, the line is representative of all but one connection.

Each of the mentioned changes can be seen in comparison with September's results in Chart 7a. 

Chart 7a: Fibre & Cable Performance as Percentage - September 2015

DSL Performance by Time of Day (ToD)

High Speed Copper (VDSL) File Download Speed

VDSL Time of Day results continued to be consistent this month, similar to September.   Bigpipe and Orcon improved slightly, and Vodafone was also more consistent during the day except for the 9PM evening dip similar to that of September.  Slingshot has maintained the improvements reported last month.  

Low Speed Copper (ADSL) File Download Speed

ADSL performance was again the same as September (above 95% of peak hour) across most hours this month. Evening contention was still evident in Flip and Vodafone 9PM results. Slingshot evening performance maintained the September improvement in the evening period. 

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.

By Technology

The average upload speed of all Probes based on technology, and service speed is shown in Chart 10.

Fibre Upload generally achieves above advertised speed, with the exception of 50Mb/s Fibre (upload speed). With the evening congestion reduced in October, there were slight increases in each Fibre upload speed, 50Mb/s FIbre averaged about 45Mb/s.

Upload Time of Day Performance - by ISP

This month's Time of Day results - Chart 11 - shows less variation compared to last month, and reflects the increased average speed of some 20Mb/s and 50Mb/s services.  Contention in Orcon's service around 9PM can be seen, though with improvement on last month.

Vodafone 20Mb/s Fibre improved, both in average speed, and more noticeably between 8PM and 10PM, although the average speed is 20% slower than the market leader Spark at 25Mb/s.

Performance relative to advertised speed is an alternative way to view performance as in Chart 11a. This shows the relative drop in speed in the evening, showing that Spark and 2Degrees both deliver a significantly faster upload speed than they advertise.

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