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Telstra might be the largest and oldest telco in Australia, but that doesn't mean it's automatically the fastest option on the market. It once owned Australia's ADSL copper network, but now everyone is shifting to the government-owned NBN. That means Telstra is facing plenty of competition from speed-focused providers such as Aussie Broadband and 10mates.
To help you decide whether Telstra's broadband service is fast enough for you, we've collected speed data from a variety of sources so you can compare it to other broadband providers.
While there are four main NBN speed tiers available, those tiers only reflect the theoretical maximum speeds you could receive under optimal conditions. The real world rarely allows for optimal conditions, with factors like network congestion meaning the speeds you get are often much lower than those associated with each NBN tier.
Fortunately, most telcos now provide information around the typical speeds their customers receive during the busy evening hours of 7pm to 11pm. These speeds are a more accurate representation of the performance you're likely to see if you sign up with a particular telco.
The chart below shows how Telstra's typical evening speeds stack up. We've sorted against the top-ranking telcos in the Standard NBN speed tier. If you want to see how Telstra compares against an even wider range of telcos, check out our ranking of NBN providers with the fastest typical evening speeds.
Provider |
---|
iiNet |
TPG Broadband |
Telstra Broadband |
Belong Broadband |
Aussie Broadband |
Tangerine Broadband |
Netflix regularly releases reports on the average speeds its subscribers record from different Australian telcos. These speeds reflect the performance during what Netflix calls "prime time" and apply only to Netflix, so they may not line up with performance for other online activities.
Here's how Telstra's Netflix performance compares to other Aussie telcos according to the most recent Netflix report:
Data updated for Jan 2021 from the Netflix ISP Speed Index
Provider | Average Prime Time Netflix speed |
---|---|
Telstra NBN | 4.82Mbps |
Optus NBN | 4.74Mbps |
Aussie Broadband | 4.63Mbps |
iiNet NBN | 4.60Mbps |
TPG NBN | 4.57Mbps |
Exetel | 4.47Mbps |
Telstra non-NBN | 4.56Mbps |
Optus non-NBN | 4.23Mbps |
MyRepublic NBN | 4.29Mbps |
iPrimus | 4.32Mbps |
Dodo | 4.32Mbps |
iiNet non-NBN | 4.19Mbps |
TPG non-NBN | 4.17Mbps |
MyRepublic non-NBN | 3.36Mbps |
Google also maintains data on the performance of Internet providers accessing its streaming video service, YouTube. Instead of tracking download speeds, it focuses on how consistently a particular provider delivers HD video to its customers within a 24-hour period, averaged out over a full month. The closer a provider's rating is to 100%, the more likely you are to enjoy a crisp and clear streaming experience.
This is how Telstra stacks up against the top telcos for streaming YouTube:
Data updated for Jan 2021 from Google's Video Quality Report
Provider | 24-hour video quality average | Peak-hour video quality average | Overall video quality rating |
---|---|---|---|
Foxtel Broadband NBN | 97.13% HD | 98.00% HD | 97.56% HD |
Telstra NBN | 95.79% HD | 96.00% HD | 95.90% HD |
Dodo NBN | 95.75% HD | 96.00% HD | 95.88% HD |
TPG | 95.33% HD | 95.80% HD | 95.57% HD |
Activ8me | 95.17% HD | 95.60% HD | 95.38% HD |
Optus | 94.79% HD | 95.00% HD | 94.90% HD |
Telstra ADSL | 93.71% HD | 93.80% HD | 93.75% HD |
If you play video games on your PC, odds are you're familiar with Steam. Steam is the most popular PC games storefront and tracks the performance of quite a few popular Australian telcos, recording their average download speeds and updating them on a weekly basis.
Below you can see how Telstra fares against the other telcos tracked by Steam:
Data updated for Jan 2021 from Steam
Provider | Average download speed on Steam |
---|---|
Aussie Broadband | 41.2Mbps |
MyRepublic | 34.1Mbps |
Exetel | 28.7Mbps |
Vodafone | 26.1Mbps |
Telstra | 24.4Mbps |
Optus | 26.5Mbps |
iiNet | 22.5Mbps |
TPG | 24.6Mbps |
iPrimus | 20.1Mbps |
Dodo | 18.4Mbps |
After establishing guidelines around how Internet providers should advertise their typical evening speeds, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) began measuring the performance of Australian broadband providers on an ongoing basis. Each quarter, it releases a new report charting how close each provider came to hitting its maximum speeds during the busy evening hours of 7pm to 11pm.
You can see how consistently Telstra hit its maximum speeds in the chart below compared to the other providers tracked by the ACCC:
Data updated for Jan 2021 from ACCC Broadband Performance Report
Provider | Percentage of Max. Download Speed (busy hours) |
---|---|
TPG | 86.70% |
Optus | 85.50% |
Aussie Broadband | 85.30% |
MyRepublic | 84.80% |
iiNet | 84.20% |
Telstra | 83.10% |
Exetel | 82.80% |
Dodo | 80.40% |
iPrimus | 80.40% |
Thousands of Australians still don’t have access to the NBN, but there are fast speed Internet alternatives available.
Read more…Internet speeds in Australia are at an all-time high this year thanks to measures taken by NBN Co during the pandemic.
Read more…Gigabit Internet was introduced in Australia in May 2020 for people on certain NBN connection types.
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