ACCC: TPG still best for NBN speed, Optus worst for outages

Alex Choros - Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor

Last updated 07 May 2019

ACCC: TPG still best for NBN speed, Optus worst for outages

The ACCC has put out its fifth Measuring Broadband Australia report, with TPG once again coming out on top in terms of real world NBN speeds. TPG customers were found to receive 88% of their plan's maximum speeds during peak hours (between 7pm and 11pm), putting the telco ahead of Aussie Broadband, Optus, Telstra and more.

The report currently covers nine major providers - Aussie Broadband, Dodo, Exetel, iiNet, iPrimus, MyRepublic, Optus, Telstra, and TPG. Here's how they stacked up:

Average percent of max. download speed

	Overall	Overall excluding under performing connections	Peak hours
Aussie Broadband	86.9%	90.6%	85.9%
Dodo	83.5%	86.7%	81.8%
Exetel	85.6%	86.7%	85.2%
iiNet	85.3%	90.5%	84.5%
iPrimus	83.5%	86.7%	85.2%
MyRepublic	82.6%	90.7%	81.9%
Optus	85.8%	91.6%	85.0%
Telstra	83.9%	90.9%	83.5%
TPG	89.0%	91%	88.3%

While these results are mostly an improvement on past reports, the ACCC once again found that consumers continue to experience under-performing services that never achieve close to their advertised plan speeds. This situation affected 13% of volunteers partaking in the Measuring Broadband Australia program, including one in four Fibre to the Node (FTTN) customers on either an NBN 50 or NBN 100 plan.

When you exclude under-performing connections, Optus comes out on top for overall speeds. But Optus, Aussie Broadband, iiNet, MyRepublic, Telstra, and TPG are all within a single percentage point of one another.

For the first time, the Measuring Broadband report now also tracks outages that last over 30 seconds. Optus came out the worst, with an average of 1.6 daily outages. Every other provider covered in the report had an average of less than 0.5 per day. Here's how providers stacked up:

Aussie Broadband: Approximately 0.3 daily outages
Dodo: Approximately 0.2 daily outages
Exetel: Approximately 0.4 daily outages
iiNet: Approximately 0.2 daily outages
iPrimus: Approximately 0.2 daily outages
MyRepublic: Approximately 0.1 daily outages
Optus: Approximately 1.5 daily outages
Telstra: Approximately 0.15 daily outages
TPG: Approximately 0.15 daily outages

Meanwhile, while the peak hour speed test results look like a clear win for TPG, we would suggest taking these with a grain of salt. The testing was conducted throughout February 2019 across just 940 households. All but 31 of these households have a connection with one of the nine providers featured in the report.

However, the ACCC says it now has a growing panel of over 1,000 volunteers for its next quarter of testing.

If you're after a new NBN plan, check out our guide to plans from the providers mentioned in this report.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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