The latest Measuring Broadband NZ Winter Report has been released, and the results confirm the South Island’s internet speed is nearly the same as the north.
The quarterly report, published by the Commerce Commission, confirms plans across the country are bringing similar speeds on both islands through six service options. The six options, in descending order of upload and download speeds, are Fibre Max, HFC Max, Fibre 100, VDSL, Fixed Wireless, and ADSL.
The results have been enhanced thanks to a new test server in Christchurch that enables measurement of internet performance in the South Island independently, Telecommunications Commissioner Tristan Gilbertson said.
“The Christchurch server has confirmed that any differences in performance in the South Island are the result of many providers routing their traffic via the North Island. However, the difference in performance for high speed fibre plans is minor, and would likely not be noticeable for most South Islanders.”
Independent testing partner SamKnows continues to provide result reports for the ComCom and industry stakeholders to understand and monitor regional variations for other broadband services.
“Overall, the latest report shows that all download, upload and latency results are in line with previous reports, which is good news for consumers,” Gilbertson added.
Report now measures latency around League of Legends, Fortnite and more
Covering May 1-31 2021, the quarterly reports now cover in detail the latency resulting from gaming, and measures how fibre plans impact broadband performance with popular online gaming applications such as Apex Legends, FIFA, Fortnite and League of Legends. This report has found fibre plans have the lowest latency on average. Unsurprisingly, the report confirms users on ADSL, VDSL and Fixed Wireless plans are more likely to experience higher latency and lag using online gaming applications. Future reports will include updated gaming tests covering more games and international servers.
Gilbertson added the Commerce Commission is looking for more volunteers to install a SamKnows Whitebox in their homes to enable the programme to compare the performance of a wider range of broadband services and broadband providers.
More information about Measuring Broadband NZ, including registering to become a volunteer, can be found on the MBNZ website.