If you just read Telstra’s entry on the Netflix Speed Index for Australia, you might think they were the worst ISP in the land. Telstra’s not taking that kind of thing lying down.
I discussed this at some length earlier in the day, commenting that Telstra’s larger network size could well have a flattening effect on the average speed connections of the nation’s largest telco, and that’s pretty much the exact tack that Telstra itself has taken.
Writing over at Telstra’s Exchange blog, Telstra’s Group MD of Networks, Mike Wright states that:
“The Telstra Netflix results are not unusual for a national ADSL provider where the lower averages are due to the extensive size of our ADSL footprint. What it does show is that we are delivering a more than reasonable video experience during peak viewing times, providing over 2 Mbps on average across a vast and extensive network area, servicing some 3.9M customers over ~2800 exchanges.
The factors that influence the national average include the larger size of the Telstra network over a wider ADSL footprint and customer base which means that we serve a larger number of customers further away from exchanges. This is due to the longer length of the copper lines which causes data speeds to reduce with distance.”
What’s interesting there is that Telstra’s pegging this largely on the speeds of older ADSL/ADSL2+ connections, along with the larger customer number issue. Netflix doesn’t break out its speeds based on connections, which is a pity; it’d be fascinating to see the average cable, NBN (Fiber, in Netflix-speak) and ADSL connection speeds by themselves.
Source: Telstra