ACMA says Internet access services perform OK

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 02 March 2006 16:38

Your IT - Home IT

The ACMA has released a study of Internet access service performance saying it has concluded that performance is generally consistent with what could be expected.

This conclusion flies in the face of numerous claims that Internet access speeds are often much slower than claimed because of heavy congestion on inadequate links in the backend of networks.

The report, Understanding your internet quality of service 2004-05 "assesses Australian consumers' experience in using Internet services, including download and upload data rates across major cities and regional areas, network availability and latency."

The study found that digital subscriber line (DSL) and dial-up Internet, achieved download data rates of around 83 percent and 74 percent of advertised rates respectively.

As expected, cable users achieved high download and upload data rates, but with greater levels of variation, while wireless services also displayed greater variation than DSL. "These results are consistent with the current engineering limitations of the technologies," the ACMA says.

ACMA chairman, Chris Chapman, said that ACMA is considering the most appropriate strategy for future monitoring of internet services.

The ACMA cautions that "It is important to note that the data used in this study comes from a sample of internet users that have been self-selected and is therefore not randomly generated. Data samples are also limited for regional areas and caution should be exercised in drawing inferences about the applicability to Australian internet users more generally."

The report can be accessed on ACMA's website  along with a fact sheet on factors affecting internet performance.

The study of internet connections was conducted for ACMA by Telco One Pty Ltd using data from the TCP/IQ line speed meter, a free tool that can be downloaded from an Internet website to measure the performance of the connection between the users' computer and the internet. The results of performance tests are transferred from the user's computer to an online database. The meter can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.tcpiq.com