First Internode NBN customer in SA: Broadband speed consistency makes fibre a winner

Screenshot of results from SpeedTest.net courtesy of Raaj Menon.

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Broadband speed consistency delivered through the fibre-based National Broadband Network (NBN) is something an copper-based ADSL service can't offer, according to Raaj Menon, PCRange CEO and the first NBN customer for Internode in South Australia.

PCRange is a distributor of broadband and networking products.

Despite doubling his home to work commute time, Menon relocated from Sheidow Park in SA to Willunga to give his wife a bigger backyard and to be one of the first to trial the NBN.

He has had the connection for less than a day but has performed speed tests on his new connection which has yielded impressive results.

Download was recorded at 95.12Mbps and upload was shown to be 35.99Mbps through SpeedTest.net.

“It’s a pretty amazing experience especially when upload is almost 40 times faster than what I used to get on ADSL,” Menon said. “Even just browsing the Web, there is a noticeable difference.”

But what really separates the fibre-based NBN from an ADSL connection is the consistency in speed, he said.

Menon recounted experiences of fluctuating downlink and uplink speeds on his ADSL service.

“Here is the problem with ADSL: Because the copper lines are eroding and so forth, whenever there is heavy rain or if it’s too hot or what not, I’d sometimes looks sync about three or four times a day,” he said. “Sometimes the speeds would change; I’d be listening to a radio stream and it’d be buffering.

“You have all those challenges with ADSL but with fibre, you don’t.”

Menon saw businesses benefitting more from the NBN than residential end-users. With a growing number of employees working remotely and the rapid adoption of cloud computing, the super-fast speeds offered by the NBN are required.

“People always think the NBN is for end-users to download movies and music, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s mainly for businesses that do a lot of uploads, send a lot of large files through email, do video conferencing and so on.”

Menon conducts business at home as well and now he can use his NBN connection for work as well.

As per the terms of the NBN trial, he will report any glitches he experiences on his broadband connection back to Internode.

Willunga, Brunswick in Victoria, Townsville in Queensland, Armidale and Kiama in NSW were named as the first mainland NBN trial locations in March 2010.

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