Suburbs edge downtown for web speed

Monday 20th December 2010

Web browsing speeds appear to have a tendency to be relatively slower for central city sites compared to suburban sites, the Commerce Commission says.

In its latest report on broadband service quality, which covered the first six months of 2010, the commission said possible reasons for the difference in speed were the age of copper lines, and interference with other data services in the copper plant.

If those factors had contributed to slower browsing speeds for central city sites, the problem could potentially be alleviated with various interference management solutions, the report published today said.

It also noted that the focus was moving to the replacement of copper with fibre broadband access, which did not suffer from the electromagnetic interference problems.

Web browsing is the most common activity undertaken by internet users, and the speed at which webpages load is one of the factors measured by the commission.

In the latest report period, it found a considerable reduction in the variability of web browsing speeds during the course of a day, particularly with internet service providers (ISPs) that had performed poorly in the previous report.

Internet availability was also found to have continued to improve, with only one ISP having failed to meet the commission's monthly availability benchmark of 99.9%, the report said.

Telecommunications Commissioner Ross Patterson said the report also showed the benefits of local loop unbundling which continued to provide greater choice and better services for consumers.

Web browsing speeds for ISPs with unbundled Telecom exchanges were found to have improved to being around 20% faster than access provided using Telecom Wholesale services for the last two months of the measurement period.

NZPA

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