I am supposed to have broadband which the US Communications Commission defines as delivering a minimum download speed of 4Mbts per second but my Optus service shows only around 50kBts to 150kBts per second which the US refers to as "baseband.
" Have I and everyone else just got baseband and are being deceived.
16/05/2012
Hi Terry,
I take your point, and as a transplanted American myself, I'm sometimes guilty of applying US standards in a country that is, at last check, not the United States. That being said, Australian standards are similar (usually more stringent, as a matter of fact).
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The Australian Government Dept. of Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy maintains a broadband guarantee to provide 512 kbps download speed and 128kbps upload speed. As a result, speed tiers have been mostly abolished in Australia - most exchanges support ADSL2+, and connections will go as fast as your line will allow.
Far from deception, what you may be experiencing is line trouble. In fact, we've provided a number of helpful articles to address the issue of slow broadband speeds. Please check:
Why is my Cable connection so slow?
Why is my Mobile Broadband connection so slow?
Why is my ADSL connection so slow?
This is an issue you need to troubleshoot with your service provider. A minimum broadband speed of 4Mbps is not guaranteed by any standard, American or otherwise. When I personally search for such a standard definition under US Federal Law, I am confronted only with US federal standard FS-1037C, which defines wideband or broadband as 4 kHz, which is a frequency standard, not a speed standard. Regardless, US federal law carries little weight here in Australia.
Moving forward - Australian average speed is 4.9 Mbps, as per the most recent State of the Internet report from US research firm Akamai, as chronicled here. That's not fantastic, but the country is big and the population is small, and improvments to the national infrastructure are on the way. In the meantime, you may want to take the time to make sure there isn't an actual issue affecting your speed, and the best place to start would be by calling your service provider, Optus, on 1300 303 795.
Thanks,
Adam Wajnberg
1300 106 571
