If you are planning on working from home during any impending lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus, there are a few things you should check to make sure your national broadband connection can cope.
With multiple people at home all day long, everyone will have their own broadband needs for work and leisure. Video conferencing for office meetings or school lessons, logging into networks remotely or using Netflix to cure the boredom all mean the amount of bandwidth the average home needs is going to go up significantly.
According to NBN Co, last year the average download a day across Australia was close to 7GB, while on its busiest day (Boxing Day) it was close to 12GB. More people at home will likely push it up somewhere near the latter.
Research by the then-department of communications in 2018 estimated that by 2026 the maximum that Australian households made up of two adults and two children would need was 49Mbps download speeds in peak use times. That is assuming one of the adults is making a video call, the other is streaming a video and browsing online on their phone and the two children are watching YouTube and gaming online, and a software update is downloading.
In theory, this should mean that more than half the population on the NBN should have sufficient speeds. According to NBN Co, as of the middle of last year, 64% of homes and businesses on a fixed-line connection or the fixed wireless 4G service had connections of 50Mbps or over.
But whether it achieves that speed will depend on a variety of factors. First, the technology you’re connected to. If you are on fibre-to-the-premises, there should be no immediate issue getting that speed. If you are on fibre-to-the-node or fibre-to-the-kerb, it will largely depend on the quality of the copper line from the node to the home. The poorer the line, the slower the download speed.
According to the competition regulator’s latest report, just 80% of fibre-to-the-node connections could reach their maximum download speed in the busiest hour of the day. The issue has led to Telstra killing off the 100Mbps plans for people connecting to the NBN this way.
If you are on cable, which NBN bought off Telstra and still used to deliver Foxtel, you may struggle due to a high number of outages on the service, but the speed ranks similar to fibre-to-the-premises, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
Around a third of people on the fixed wireless 4G connections get only between 3Mbps and 25Mbps on the service during the busy times, according to NBN Co’s latest statistics. In a lockdown period, those busy times would go up, reducing the download speed.
Those in regional and remote areas of Australia are going to struggle the most. The satellite services covering about 400,000 homes and now connected to close to 100,000 can order only a maximum of 25Mbps plans. Any uptick in demand is likely to strain this service and make it more difficult to reach even 25Mbps.
You may want to review your plan and upgrade to a higher speed tier if you can. The ACCC’s report also highlights which internet service providers perform better. It is also worth reviewing whether your modem is up to scratch in handling all those devices connecting at once.
One factor not modelled in the government research is whether an increase in uploads – for people working from home and needing to send large files to their office – would require higher speeds.
There are also factors outside users’ control that could lead to a poor NBN connection during lockdown. They include poor weather, power outages and if your internet service provider fails to buy enough bandwidth capacity from NBN Co for your area to meet the increased demand.
NBN Co has seen a small increase in usage on the network so far but a spokesman said it was working with retailers to ensure it could meet the “unprecedented demand” expected. “As always, we encourage customers to contact their internet retailer to understand how their current plan would support their home-working needs.”
If you are lucky enough to be in one of the early rollout locations for 5G with Telstra or Optus, you may wish to consider substituting your NBN connection with that – especially if your connection is particularly poor.
The other factor to consider is whether the services people are wanting to use – Netflix and others – are well prepared to cope with the influx of people wanting to use them. Companies will need to factor in higher demand for their services and increased traffic to their websites.
Netflix declined to comment when asked but directed Guardian Australia to its Open Connect service, which allows internet service providers to host Netflix content locally, meaning it has much less distance to travel when Australians are watching.
