Exetel takes out top spot in the latest ACCC NBN speed report

Alex Choros - Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor

Last updated 31 August 2021

The ACCC has released the fourteenth Measuring Broadband Australia report, which sees Exetel take out the top spot on the charts for the first time, ending Optus' winning streak. Exetel customers were found to receive 100.5% of their plans maximum speeds during peak hours (between 7pm and 11pm), putting it narrowly ahead of Optus (whose customers were found to receive speeds 100.4% of their plans' maximum speeds), and the likes of TPG, Telstra, Superloop, and Aussie Broadband.

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The report currently covers eleven major providers - Aussie Broadband, Dodo, Exetel, iiNet, iPrimus, MyRepublic, Optus, Telstra, TPG, Superloop, and Vodafone. Here's how they all stack up:

Average percent of max. download speed

	Overall	Overall excluding under performing connections	Peak hours
Aussie Broadband	97.7%	100.0%	96.9%
Dodo	93.1%	96.7%	92.2%
Exetel	101.3%	102.9%	100.5%
iiNet	96.1%	99.2%	95.4%
iPrimus	93.1%	96.7%	92.2%
MyRepublic	99.4%	101.9%	98.0%
Optus	101.3%	103.2%	100.4%
Superloop	96.6%	97.7%	95.3%
Telstra	100.6%	104.0%	99.8%
TPG	98.9%	101.5%	98.3%
Vodafone	96.2%	100.9%	95.2%

While some providers demonstrated ever so slightly worse performance than last time, the majority showed an improvement. Dodo, iPrimus, Vodafone, and MyRepublic all made notable gains, with no provider's peak hour speeds dipping under 90% of plan maximums. Once again, the ACCC says NBN performance is better than ever on average.

The Measuring Broadband report also tracks outages that last over 30 seconds. Here's how providers stacked up:

Aussie Broadband: Approximately 0.39 daily outages
Dodo: Approximately 0.12 daily outages
Exetel: Approximately 0.14 daily outages
iiNet: Approximately 0.16 daily outages
iPrimus: Approximately 0.12 daily outages
MyRepublic: Approximately 0.1 daily outages
Optus: Approximately 0.19 daily outages
Superloop: Approximately 0.27 daily outages
Telstra: Approximately 0.19 daily outages
TPG: Approximately 0.15 daily outages
Vodafone: Approximately 0.12 daily outages

As of the twelfth Measuring Broadband Report, the ACCC covers fixed wireless NBN services. This time around, the ACCC found another slight improvement in speed. Average speeds were 83.7% of plan maximums during all hours and 71.7% during busy hours, up from 81.2% and 70.8% respectively.

As always, it's worth remembering the scale of the ACCC's testing. The results come from a month-long testing period during May across just 1,144 NBN connections. All but 42 of these households have a connection with one of the eleven providers featured in the report. The ACCC reports a 95% confidence level in its results.

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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