TPG takes out top spot in ACCC's speed report

Anula Wiwatowska - Offsite Editorial Lead

Last updated 29 March 2021

The ACCC has put out the twelfth Measuring Broadband Australia report, with TPG topping the charts and knocking Optus off its five time winning streak. TPG customers were found to receive 98.9% of their plan's maximum speeds during peak hours (between 7pm and 11pm) putting the telco ahead of Optus, Telstra, Superloop, Aussie Broadband, and more.

The report currently now covers eleven major providers - Aussie Broadband, Dodo, Exetel, iiNet, iPrimus, MyRepublic, Optus, Telstra, TPG, and Vodafone. As of the previous report, Superloop has also become a featured provider. Here are how they all stack up:

Average percent of max. download speed

	Overall	Overall excluding under performing connections	Peak hours
Aussie Broadband	97.0%	100.4%	96.1%
Dodo	86.1%	89.6%	85.0%
Exetel	90.4%	91.4%	89.9%
iiNet	97.1%	101.1%	96.5%
iPrimus	86.1%	89.6%	85.0%
MyRepublic	97.0%	101.5%	95.7%
Optus	99.4%	103.0%	98.7%
Superloop	96.4%	98.1%	95.3%
Telstra	98.2%	102.9%	97.1%
TPG	99.5%	102.3%	98.9%
Vodafone	94.5%	98.1%	93.7%

While TPG has dethroned Optus, it is only by 0.1% in terms of peak hour download speeds. iiNet was the most improved from last quarter, demonstrating a 3.2% increase in peak hour speeds. Optus was however slightly faster when you exclude underperforming services, with an 0.7% lead.

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

Aussie Broadband: Approximately 0.22 daily outages
Dodo: Approximately 0.17 daily outages
Exetel: Approximately 0.17 daily outages
iiNet: Approximately 0.24 daily outages
iPrimus: Approximately 0.17 daily outages
MyRepublic: Approximately 0.22 daily outages
Optus: Approximately 0.26 daily outages
Superloop: Approximately 0.17 daily outages
Telstra: Approximately 0.18 daily outages
TPG: Approximately 0.26 daily outages
Vodafone: Approximately 0.2 daily outages

Up until now the Measuring Broadband Report has only taken into account NBN fixed-line services, but the twelfth report has also, for the first time included NBN fixed wireless services. According to ACCC reporting, fixed wireless customers achieve just 68% of maximum download speeds, and 52% of maximum upload speeds during peak hours. The report is yet to compare providers in the same way it does for fixed line connections.

Once again, TPG comes out well, but it is worth remembering the scale of the ACCC's testing. The results come from a month-long testing period during December across just 1,199 NBN connections. All but 26 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.

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

Anula Wiwatowska

Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram

Anula is the Off-Site Editorial Lead for WhistleOut Australia, and an award winning tech journalist. She has been writing about the Australian telco industry, and consumer technology for over five years, and has been known to tell her Uber driver which phone they should upgrade to next.

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