The state of NZ internet

Following a couple of tweets earlier today stating that our Internet in NZ is somewhat better than we folk who complain think it is, I decided to do a bit of my own research.    I've found in the past that many 'facts' stated in newspapers are outrageously wrong as journalists have a tendency to misread or misrepresent data in order to create a good headline, this means I like to dig around and find out facts for myself as basically I don't trust journalists as far as I can throw them.

So, what was it that got my blood boiling this morning?  Someone stating that 80% of NZ internet users get speeds greater than 10Mbps.  What a load of tosh!   Yes, the capability may exist and the telecoms may tell us that they're providing these speeds, but we're certainly not getting these speeds.  

I decided to dig further and use an Internationally recognized set of stats to find out the truth... you too can find out stats for yourself right here:  http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/.  The actual official real and true factual stats on New Zealand's State of the Internet:

• 23% of internet users are achieving a connection speed greater than 5Mbps (NOT 80% > 10Mbps)
• 72.1% of internet users achieving connection speed greater than 2Mbps and less than 5Mbps
• 0.8% of internet users achieving connection speeds between 256kbps and 2Mbps
• 4.1% of internet users achieving connection speed less than 256kbps
• The average connection speed in NZ for Q3 2011 was 3.988 Mbps.   

I dream of 10 Mbps, my ADSL2+ modem yearns for speeds greater than 4 Mbps.... as for upload speed, I may as well just use snail mail.   

I am on the Vodafone Ideal Pack Red.   This means I'm on the Red Network which is Vodafone's unbundled ADSL2+ network and apparently I have max upload and max download speeds.  To quote a Tui ad - yeah right!   If you want to know more about the Red Network, there's a discussion over on Geekzone: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=40&topicid=22646

To further prove my point, if the Akamai data aren't enough proof, here's a speed test performed at 2.30pm on Sunday 26th Feb 2012 on my 'High Speed ADSL2+ 20GB max/max' connection. 

My parents are always amazed at how fast my Internet connection is, they too are on ADSL2+ but are even unluckier in their connection speeds than I am due to being out in the sticks of Whangarei; on top of painfully slow speeds their connection stops working completely between 6pm and 9pm every night.  I'm just thankful that doesn't seem to happen in Auckland; one small mercy at least.

If you're lucky enough to be one of the few people who achieve speeds greater than 10 Mbps (and it's certainly not 80% of the population), then please don't rub it in the faces of those of us paying an arm and a leg for extremely sucky connection speeds.