NZ Broadband testing from Samknows

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Ultimate Geek
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#2351424 11-Nov-2019 09:35

BarTender:

hio77:
nickb800: Gotta be a positive for encouraging folk to host a probe

You say that like samknows hands them out to anyone!

They gave me one.... So the bar is pretty low.

They still won't give me one :(

ZL2TOY/ZL1DMP

Jase2985

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#2351442 11-Nov-2019 10:18

Taubin:

They still won't give me one :(

why do you NEED one?

they have likely filled all there spots for each ISP so no more probes to give out

Hammerer

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#2351558 11-Nov-2019 13:04

Taubin:

BarTender:

hio77:
nickb800: Gotta be a positive for encouraging folk to host a probe

You say that like samknows hands them out to anyone!

They gave me one.... So the bar is pretty low.

They still won't give me one :(

I checked that my connection plan one of their preferences. It was and I was invited to join the same day.

It my be good timing for me because WiFi on the 5GHz band has started to drop out for some reason.

ripdog

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#2351661 11-Nov-2019 14:45

Jase2985:
Taubin:

They still won't give me one :(

why do you NEED one?

they have likely filled all there spots for each ISP so no more probes to give out

Considering that samknows hasn't bothered to get off their collective asses and provide the thing they were paid a million dollars for (an ISP comparison), the only value their testing boxes have is to provide internet speeds tests to the owner of the connection. So I guess he wants it for that.

surfisup1000

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#2351726 11-Nov-2019 17:02

ripdog:

Considering that samknows hasn't bothered to get off their collective asses and provide the thing they were paid a million dollars for (an ISP comparison), the only value their testing boxes have is to provide internet speeds tests to the owner of the connection. So I guess he wants it for that.

A million dollars a year thank you, and they've been collecting data since July last year so presumably they've collected 1.5 million dollars.

They did produce a report that show fibre is faster than DSL.

I wonder what is causing the hold up. Maybe they have too few data acquisition devices to collect sufficient information.

freitasm

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#2376743 17-Dec-2019 08:33

Latest report (December 2019) released. Discussion thread here.

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#2733423 24-Jun-2021 08:31

Just now:

The Commerce Commission has extended its Measuring Broadband New Zealand (MBNZ) programme for another year to continue to provide consumers and the industry with information about broadband performance.

The one-year contract extension with independent testing partner SamKnows was announced alongside the release of its latest Autumn report, covering broadband performance across New Zealand in March 2021. The Autumn report confirms ongoing high levels of performance comparable to the previous Summer report.

Telecommunications Commissioner Tristan Gilbertson said the report also includes an analysis of dropouts and disconnections across technologies for the first time.

“Short dropouts affect the performance of real time applications like gaming and video conferencing so we wanted to get a picture of how much of an issue this is for New Zealand users across different technologies,” he said.

“While dropouts are more frequent with ADSL and Fixed Wireless connections than for fibre, the incidence is so low that most users won’t encounter any problems. It confirms that New Zealanders have access to world-class broadband services no matter what technology they decide to use.”

Mr Gilbertson said that in addition to helping consumers compare the performance of broadband technologies, providers and plans so that they are not limited to selecting a plan based on price, it is also a useful tool for providers to see how they compare against their competitors, and to identify and fix performance issues. As an example, the programme identified poor performance across Fibre Max services last year and the Commission worked with industry to boost data speeds.

“Fibre Max data speeds increased by one-third between September and December last year after industry fixed performance issues highlighted by the programme,” Mr Gilbertson said. “It’s great to see this report confirming that industry has locked in these gains for Fibre Max customers. It shows the programme is working for New Zealand consumers and should be extended.”

Mr Gilbertson said the extension of the SamKnows contract will provide continuity for consumers while the Commission considers longer-term options for measuring broadband, including in-home WiFi experience and, potentially, the measurement of mobile coverage and performance.

The UK-based SamKnows is a world leader in internet performance measurement, covering almost half of the world’s internet population. The Commission contracted SamKnows to measure the performance of broadband connections of approximately 3,000 New Zealand households in 2018 following a tender process for an initial three-year period.

Mr Gilbertson said that the Commission still has space for volunteers to install a SamKnows Whitebox in their homes. He said that the box does not record any personal information or browsing history or interfere with internet services. It also gives volunteers access to their own personal broadband performance information in real time through a personalised online performance dashboard.

More information about Measuring Broadband NZ, including registering to become a volunteer, can be found on the MBNZ website. The Commission’s volunteer recruitment video can be watched here.

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richms

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#2733664 24-Jun-2021 11:54

Do they have anything that is capable of measuring the fast plans yet with 10 gig ports on it?

Richard rich.ms

freitasm

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#2733773 24-Jun-2021 13:42

@richms:

Do they have anything that is capable of measuring the fast plans yet with 10 gig ports on it?

I asked them about this and got this answer:

"The most recent SamKnows Whitebox can test up to 2.5Gbps (see article here: https://samknows.com/blog/wb9). We will be exploring options to test all popular consumer plans in the New Zealand market, which could include higher speed 4 and 8Gbps plans which are currently rare offerings in other jurisdictions, as part of our consideration for the future of the Measuring Broadband New Zealand programme."

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PolicyGuy

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#2733824 24-Jun-2021 14:31

freitasm:

@richms:

Do they have anything that is capable of measuring the fast plans yet with 10 gig ports on it?

I asked them about this and got this answer:

"The most recent SamKnows Whitebox can test up to 2.5Gbps (see article here: https://samknows.com/blog/wb9). We will be exploring options to test all popular consumer plans in the New Zealand market, which could include higher speed 4 and 8Gbps plans which are currently rare offerings in other jurisdictions, as part of our consideration for the future of the Measuring Broadband New Zealand programme."

TL;DR

"Sorry, New Zealand, you're too far ahead of the game"

hio77

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#2733838 24-Jun-2021 14:50

PolicyGuy:

TL;DR

"Sorry, New Zealand, you're too far ahead of the game"

Well it's more of a case of the device they have whitelabeled only has a 2.5gbit port on it.

I know other people have mentioned their sameknows box was underpreforming, but mines been rock solid since it arrived across two providers (excluding the whole Provider A and Vendor B Issue)

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decibel

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#2733875 24-Jun-2021 16:10

What I want to know is when we are going to see graphs comparing the performance of different ISPs ?

Back in the TrueNet days, this was visible on their website's front page and I once saw a screen comparing British ISPs but nothing here.

I know some people didn't like TrueNet (though I was never sure why) but at least you could see how each ISP compared.

Nothing like that from Sam in this country, instead you have to post to that geeky forum and ask people there.

cbrpilot

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#2733892 24-Jun-2021 16:44

Hi Decibel, the last few reports from MBNZ do compare Fibre 100 and Fibre Max performance between RSPs.

Data for some providers on some plans isn't available as it seems they do not have enough volunteers on those providers.

My views are my own, and may not necessarily represent those of my employer.

decibel

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#2733951 24-Jun-2021 17:29

cbrpilot:

Hi Decibel, the last few reports from MBNZ do compare Fibre 100 and Fibre Max performance between RSPs.

Data for some providers on some plans isn't available as it seems they do not have enough volunteers on those providers.

Aaah, yes - buried in the bowels of the COMCOM report, but still very patchy.

I would have thought that after 2 years or more that they would have had more volunteers.

Also, the report seems to have been written by a non-technical bureaucrat; do we really need to know (and have repeated in each report) that Fibre is faster than VDSL which is faster than ADSL?

I want to see something like this -

Talkiet

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#2733961 24-Jun-2021 17:47

It's relatively easy to have graphs showing big differences if you are prepared to ignore accurate methodology and analysis. There were numerous documented cases where Truenet was showing misleading results. My favourite was where they claimed the download speed for 30M fibre plans for some RSPs was substantially higher than 30M, and in fact higher than the configured L2 bandwidth on the input services - they even doubled down on defending that result when challenged. (spoiler - it was a bad test methodology, not a meaningful difference)

Cheers - N

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