Govt network operator launches site for testing your home, or office, broadband speed. Um, why?
Political motives perhaps behind new site, and the way it positions results – but some of it is wishful thinking. UPDATED
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July 11: Using Reannz new broadband testing site at home, I found it recorded download speed (7.58Mbit/s) off-peak – a little lower than Speedtest.net, which habitually comes in around 8-9Mbit/s offpeak, and upload speed fractionally higher.
Some have argued that Speedtest.net (which has rather a lock on the popular geek imagination) is perfectly adequate.
Why should Crown company Reannz emulate it?
I think the answer is that as well as presenting your result in megabits, the Reannz site says what your speed is as a percentage of the UFB.
My speed of 7.58Mbit/s, for example, is listed as just 5.44% of what what I could achieve if Crown fibre was laid to my door.
Well, maybe.
A fibre connection can hit up to 100Mbit/s in both directions, or roughly 10 times the speed of most copper connections today.
But the first of the Big Five ISPs to announce UFB retail pricing, Orcon, has a speed limit of 30Mbit/s on its cheapest fibre plans (that is, those pitched to compete with the price of a copper/DSL connection by hitting a $75 price point. You can pay more for full speed, and more data).
And Tauranga ISP is offering just 10Mbit/s on its lowest price fibre deal – I can achieve 90% of that speed on my copper connection today (a stat that wouldn't look so flash on Reannz site).
There are a number of factors at play here. For one, fibre won't suffer the contention issues that bog down copper, meaning a DSL connection achieves only a fraction of its top potential speed at peak times when everyone piles onto the net, such as after school and immediately after prime time.
And it is not possible for Reannz Broadband Test site to factor in the messy commercial and economic reality that will see most signing up to speed-limited fibre plans. Still, that is what is going to happen.
July 10: Reannz launched the New Zealand Broadband Test website (nzbt.org.nz) at 4pm today.
This site allows people to test the speed and performance of their home or work internet connection and compare it to fellow New Zealanders and ISPs (and eventually with other similar sites around the world).
The NBR ONLINE staff already knew their TelstraClear connection at NBR Towers was not about to win any landspeed awards.
The Broadband Test website confirmed suspisions, and everyday experience.
The result was expressed both in terms of a percentage of speed that could be achieved under the UFB Crown-subsidised fibre rollout – comparison that some may see as having political overtones, or at least an agenda to stoke demand for fibre – and in the more techy terms of megabits per second up and down:
Click to enlarge.
But while the site worked well on NBR's laptop, several readers were quick to complain its Java element would not run on iPhone or Android devices (see comments below).
Reannz (Research & Education Advanced Network NZ), which adminsters the largely unsung $100 million state-owned Karen broadband network, which links universities and Crown Research Institutes.
RAW DATA: Reannz press release
Kiwis to test and compare their Internet with the NZ Broadband Test
Today the Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ) is launching the New Zealand Broadband Test, a website that allows Kiwis to test
and compare their broadband connection.
Hosted by REANNZ, nzbt.org.nz lets users test their broadband performance at home or work and compare results between Internet Service Providers (ISPs). It also shows how much faster your internet could be as ultra-fast broadband becomes available.
nzbt.org.nz will allow users to compare their internet connection with our fellow Kiwis. Users can visit the site, test their broadband speed and performance and then choose to share their results (or not). You can then compare your internet performance with others throughout New Zealand on Google Maps.
“Internet connections can vary region to region and even neighbour to neighbour depending on your ISP, location and equipment,” says Steve Cotter, CEO of REANNZ.
“This website will let Kiwis test and compare their current connection and can help others make an informed decision about which ISP to choose.”
This is a beta version of the website, so users are invited to provide feedback on what they would like to see in the next version.
nzbt.org.nz is based on a similar site (SPEBS, broadbandtest.eett.gr) created by the EETT, the Greek telecommunications regulator. Local Kiwi developers Rabid have adapted SPEBS for New Zealand.
The open source platform means that the code can be used for free by others to develop, making it easy to create your own version, as REANNZ did for New Zealand.
The website uses Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open, distributed server platform on which researchers can host open source broadband measurement tools. One of these tools, NDT, provides the test that NZ users access each time they test via NZBT.
M-Lab is a research consortium, with a goal of advancing network research and empowering consumers by providing useful, publicly available broadband measurement data across the globe.
By enhancing Internet transparency, M-Lab helps sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.
Further details on M-Lab are available at www.measurementlab.net.
Chris Keall
Wed, 11 Jul 2012
Wed, 11 Jul 2012
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Govt network operator launches site for testing your home, or office, broadband speed. Um, why?
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