(TrueNet is contracted to the Commerce Commission to monitor broadband performance. It uses a network of probes attached to 400 volunteers' internet connections to rate ISPs — Editor.)
Slingshot, Orcon & their stablemate Flip are all the best performers for webpage downloads this month, the only ISPs achieving less than 5 seconds to download all the websites we test.
Speed performance by time of day remains excellent for most ISPs we report.
Vodafone Cable webpage download times take longer than all VDSL suppliers, while oddly Vodafone VDSL is the best VDSL supplier this month.
Index
Summary of Performance Measures - All ISPs
The time to download the front page of the webpages selected last month varies by ISP from Flip at 3.6 seconds to Snap at 5.6 seconds. This represents a fair comparison of the download speeds possible from popular sites. While the difference appears small it is likely that this difference will extend to all pages on these websites, including any larger pages than the usually optimised first page.
Speed variation by ISP from peak to off-peak remains very small with the worst performance being 90% fromOrcon ADSL, this is OK, but a further drop-off in peak time performance will be critical.
Orcon's 30Mb/s fibre average median speed is usually well above 30Mb/s, so the speed reached is actually 96% of the contracted 30Mb/s despite the difference between peak and off-peak being 86%.
Orcon 100Mb/s Fibre performance also shows at 86% of maximum speed (72Mb/s), but this is for the 100Mb/s service, ie well below the advertised speed.
Table 1: Summary of All Performance Measures
(Click to zoom)
Webpage Download Time
Webpage download time can have a major impact on internet users when times are excessively long. TrueNet measures webpage download performance using Live Public Webpages as well as our Test Webpages.
TrueNet regularly changes the choice of Live Public Webpages, and their size constantly changes. The Live Webpage tests measure download times for these pages just like a standard computer downloading them.
Test Webpages are all the same size and content, and provide a long term comparison. However they are easily cached, or stored by the ISP for delivery, unlike a popular website that changes all the time.
The total download time for the sum of time taken to download all webpages, measured in seconds, is shown in the stacked bar charts below.
Live Webpage Download Times
This test uses 8 popular public websites (Blogspot, Wikipedia, The Warehouse etc).
Chart 1: Orcon Fibre is best again this month, with Fibre outperforming all other technologies.
Vodafone VDSL as the best VDSL supplier continues to outperform Vodafone cable services when downloading webpages.
Chart 1: Live Webpage Download Time in Seconds
Test Webpage Download Times
TrueNet Test Webpages are identical files, downloaded from our servers in Wellington, Auckland, Sydney and Dallas.
Vodafone VDSL had the shortest loading time again this month, by a comfortable margin. Note the almost identical load times for all four locations, including International sites, in contrast to the Vodafone Cable services.
Chart 2: Test Pages Download Time in Seconds - National & International
Speed (File Download Performance)
Fibre - Cable - VDSL Comparison
This section compares the speed achieved by the high speed broadband technologies.
For the TrueNet speed test, a 1MB file is downloaded from both Auckland and Wellington hourly, or every 5 hours per probe depending on the data made available by each volunteer. The best download speed from Auckland or Wellington is used from each test run, and the data points below are the medians of these in Mb/s. The relative performance of Fibre, Cable and VDSL technology demonstrates the speed advantage of the 100Mb/s services. The difference between FTTN VDSL and Exchange based VDSL is due to the shorter lengths of copper on FTTN connections.
ISP File Download Comparison
Vodafone 10M/130M Cable has further lifted in speed this month, acheiving greater than 100M (104M) during the busiest hours of the day. With daytime speeds exceeding 125Mb/s, this makes it the fastest product we test by a considerable margin.
Snap is quickest this month with the 100Mb/s Fibre and Orcon is with the 30Mb/s Fibre service, however the gaps for both speeds have increased between respective ISPs.
We have an increasing sample of VDSL probes, especially the faster FTTN probes. We have 66 FTTN probes and 21 Exchange based probes. There are 8 separate ISPs with VDSL probes (2 probes changed ISPs in the month & 1 changed location):
- Telecom 32
- Snap 28
- Orcon 10
- Slingshot 5
- Vodafone 5
- Voyager 4
- Xnet 3
- Big_Pipe 2
Technology File Download Comparison
Chart 4 below compares the actual speed delivered from faster technologies using the average of all available probe medians by time of day.
The gap between VDSL speed from an exchange or FTTN has reduced since last month.
Fibre speeds include results from 10 separate ISPs, but with more than 20 probes from both Snap & Orcon. Other ISPs with probes include:
- Telecom 4
- Voyager 4
- Vodafone 2
- Kinect 2
- Slingshot 1
- Inspire 1
- Vibe 1
- EOL 1
VDSL File Download Speed
The VDSL Time of Day (ToD) download test takes the best 1MB file results from TrueNet's Auckland, or Wellington servers. Data points are calculated by taking the median hourly results of each probe, and the average of all probes; then dividing each hour by the maximum average speed of all hours. DSL speed is dependent on distance to the exchange, however the ToD performance we report is dependent on the ISP.
VDSL ToD performance is excellent with only Slingshot dropping below a very high 95% standard to 93%. Best performer is Vodafone at 96% peak demand speed as a percentage of the fastest speed during the day.
Voyager probe numbers dropped below our limit this month, meaning we cannot report.
Chart 5: VDSL File Download Speed by Hour
ADSL File Download Speed
The ADSL speed test uses a smaller 300k file than that used for Fibre, Cable & VDSL services. The 300k test file is dowloaded from TrueNet's Wellington server every hour, conserving data for our volunteers.
Speed performance by time of day continues to be excellent. Although no ISP maintained performance compared to last month. The order changed, with Snap leading again after a few months below top, Flip close behind after a few months on top and Vodafone running in third. Orcon comes up the rear with their performance dropping from 94% to 90% being the only cause for concern.
Chart 6: ADSL File Download Speed by Hour
File Upload Performance (Speed)
Upload speed is important for users moving files and content to the internet. Upload speed impacts the time taken to upload a photo or synchronise your data with the cloud.
The upload test sends a 1MB file to our server in Wellington, and records the results using a similar method to the download tests, but timed from our Wellington server.
File Upload Performance by Technology
The Upload performance of each technology is given in Chart 7 (below). There is little change from last month.
High Speed fibre (50Mb/s/100Mb/s plan) is clearly fastest, achieving between 37Mb/s & 38Mb/s averaged over all users and times.
10Mb/s/100Mb/s Cable is second, but virtually the same as 10Mb/s/30Mb/s fibre and VDSL.
Chart 7: File Upload Speed by Time of Day, by Technology
ADSL File Upload Performance by ISP
The relative performance of each ADSL provider's Upload performance is in Chart 8.
Flip & Slingshot continue to be the best, though Flip has reduced to 0.9Mb/s in May from 1.1Mb/s in April.
Snap & Orcon have the slowest average Upload speed amongst the group.
Chart 8: ADSL File Upload Speed - ISP Comparison
Latency
Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to be returned by a remote server to a Volunteer's probe.
Latency can impact many internet activities. Very poor Latency will make browsing the internet difficult if page requests fail due to timeouts. High Latency can make gaming impossible, adding to reaction time, meaning that if someone else has lower Latency they may see a game change, and react well before a slower connection is able to show the change (ie you can be shot, and killed in a game before your computer shows the shooter).
The latency between probes and our Auckland and Wellington test servers is depicted in Chart 9.
Fibre and Cable best within NZ
Snap achieved top honours for both Fibre and VDSL. Flip has the best latency for ADSL. There are significant differences between best/worst performers in ADSL and VDSL.
Chart 9: National Latency Performance - by ISP and Technology
International Latency
The latency measured to TrueNet's servers in Sydney and Dallas is given in Chart 10.
The greater distance to these locations increases the latency compared to the NZ measurements. With the greater overall latency, the differences across technologies is minor.
Contrary to the National results, Orcon results are best for fibre. Flip has the best performance for ADSL, with results similar to VDSL. Snap VDSL, while best for National latency is marginally worst for International.
As reported last month, Vodafone Cable 10Mb/s/100Mb/s shows slightly higher latency than both the 2Mb/s/15Mb/s Cable, and Vodafone VDSL.
Chart 10: International Latency Performance
Domain Name Server (DNS) Response Time
Quick DNS Response Times improve the internet browsing experience of users, very slow DNS can cause timeouts, making the internet almost unusable.
TrueNet measures the time taken to receive a response from all of an ISPs DNS servers, usually two, and records the best result for each hourly test as indicated in the charts below.
Chart 11 shows the relative performance by ISP, and results by Broadband Technology are included in Chart 12. The missing bar for Vodafone Otago indicates insufficient probes for that region only.
While many ISPs have addressed the poor performance of the South Island by locating equipment in Christchurch, the distances are long so performance in places like Central Otago continue to suffer.
By ISP
Snap is best on average, and has the quickest response time in Canterbury, Otago and Auckland, although is worst in Waikato/Bay of Plenty.
The best DNS response time for each ISP is given at the end of the relevant bar in Chart 11, and are the figures used in the Summary Table.
TrueNet is setting a target for the average DNS response from any part of NZ to be less than 25ms.
Chart 11: Regional Domain Name Server Response Time by ISP
By Technology
With a similar performance to recent months, Fibre & Cable DNS response times are often less than half that of VDSL or ADSL
Chart 12: Domain Name Server Response Time by Technology
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RAW DATA: TrueNet May 2014 Broadband Report — merging Slingshot & Orcon a winner
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