Australia Falls In World Internet Speed Rankings; New Zealand Ranks Higher Than Australia
New Zealand has outperformed Australia in terms of Internet speed in the latest U.S. study. American cloud service provider Akamai has ranked New Zealand two places higher than Australia in its latest quarterly report.
Mark Gregory, a network engineering expert at RMIT University in Melbourne, said the difference in Internet speed is largely because of New Zealand's decision to stick to a fibre-to-the-home network. He added that the Akamai is a reputable company and the report only highlights Australia's slower Internet speed as other nations have upgraded their networks, Radio NZ reported.
He said Australia will continue to lag behind other countries in the world rankings if the National Broadband Network will not be upgraded soon. According to Akamai's State of the Internet Report, Australia is 44th, based on average connection speed while New Zealand is in 42nd place.
Gregory has noted that other nations are moving towards new and faster networks over a short period of time. He said they may have completed the rollout of "multitechnology mixing/mixed networks." The federal government's decision to switch from fibre-to-home network to a mixed fibre/copper network may be partly the reason for the slower Internet speed. He said that under the previous government, the direction was towards an all fibre-based network, which was what other countries are doing right now. Australia may be larger than New Zealand but it is still financially viable to implement a fibre-to-the-premise network to cover majority of the population.
The network engineering expert said Australians may have noticed some deficiencies in quality when they try to watch streaming videos over the Internet. Despite Internet providers in the country saying they are giving high definition of 4K streaming, the actual speed is slower compared to the rest of the world.
Gregory said another development in the U.S. might push Australia further down the rankings in terms of Internet speed. The U.S. might decide to redefine its broadband to 25 megabits per second of download speed, ABC News reported.
According to Akamai, South Korea has the fastest Internet speed, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and Sweden. U.S. internet speed have improved but is still not included in the Top 10.
Contact email: r.su@ibtimes.com.au
