Internet speed is always a hot topic, is yours fast enough? How fast should it be? What should a business or a residence expect?
There has been some alarming murmurings this year when Akamai Technologies released its State of the Internet report ranking Australia 48th globally for average broadband connection speed (down two places), and 8th in Asia-Pacific (South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong took out the first three spots). Some people found it even more alarming that for peak broadband connection speeds, Australia slipped to 60th place, down twelve spots. Although these findings aren't a fantastic indication of the state of our internet, it should also be noted that year-on-year Australia's broadband speed has been increasing overall and in the last quarter average speeds increased by 11% and peak speeds by 6.6%.
There are many Internet Speed Tests available to test the speed of your internet, but there is a difference between what you’re getting and what you could be getting.
Connections available in your area
The first thing to look at is what connections are available in your area. You can check to see what broadband options are available for your residence here, it checks for all available broadband connections including the NBN, cable, and ADSL. Based on what connections are available you can make your decision.
What’s the difference between Cable, ADSL and the NBN?
Although speeds vary from provider to provider, cable is generally faster than ADSL. Cable internet relies on the coaxial cable that’s used for pay TV by Telstra/Foxtel or Optus. ADSL/SDSL utilises an existing phone line for internet access. ADSL 1 & 2 are the most common forms of broadband as it doesn’t require special cables. Cable plans can offer speeds of up to 100 mbps download and 2 mbps upload. ADSL offers speeds or up to 24 mbps download and up to 1mbps upload.
The NBN is rolling out fibre-optic, fixed wireless and satellite infrastructure to replace the existing broadband infrastructure with a faster and more reliable broadband. The NBN aims to provide fast broadband across the whole of Australia. The NBN has a range of different connections and speeds available for home and business, depending on usage-based plans.
You can check if the NBN is available at your home or business address here.
So what speed internet do I need?
The NBN bases it’s plans on Tiers which gives a good indication of what speed is needed for your usage. These tiers can be used as a guide in choosing your provider and plan type.
| TIER | TYPE | DONWLOAD SPEED | UPLOAD SPEED | USAGE GUIDE |
| Tier 1 | Everyday residential use | 12 Mbps | 1 Mbps | Every day internet use for basic tasks like uploading an image to social media. |
| Tier 2 | Moderate to heavy residential use | 25 Mbps | 5 Mbps | Everyday internet use including streaming video or online movie rentals. |
| Tier 3 | Small business use | 25 Mbps | 10 Mbps | Recommended for small businesses as it has a higher upload speed. Too many users though would bottleneck the service. |
| Tier 4 | Heavy home use | 50 Mbps | 20 Mbps | Internet use including streaming videos with no wait time and online gaming with no lag time. |
| Tier 5 | Future-proof home plans and SMB | 100 Mbps | 40 Mbps |
Home users who want to download full-length HD movies in minutes, future-proofed for when these files are bigger with new higher resolution tchnologies. Small - medium businesses who share large amount of media online, and who use cloud services. |
SOURCE: WhistleOut.
What about internet speeds for Business?
Businesses require faster speeds than home use, and require faster upload speeds to access cloud services. There are many internet options available for business including the NBN, Fibre400 and many other business-grade options like Fibre Optic Ethernet. Fibre400 for businesscan be used for a massive range of applications including IP Telephony such as VoIP or hosted PBX, web & email server hosting, video conferencing and large data file transfers, corporate LAN to LAN connections such as VPNs and here multiple user require access. If you’re interested in Fibre400 you can check here to see if it’s available in your building.
Helping Businesses
A fast and secure connection is a necessity in today's digital age where employees require mobility and access to business applications from any device, anytime. Work has often become something we do, rather than somewhere we go. Without a quality connection staff would not be able to perform at their peak efficiency or productivity.
To learn more about business internet connections, call us on 1300 865 865.
