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Congrats, Optus: you're the world's worst for 3G

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Angus Kidman16 September 2008, 9:01 AM

A global survey has concluded that Optus offers the slowest network speeds of any carrier selling the iPhone worldwide and that Aussies get the slowest 3G speeds in general.

The Wired.com survey asked users to test their available 3G data speeds and then map them to their location. 233 Australians took part in the study.

Australians have been relatively spoiled for choice when buying an iPhone, with the choice of four carriers (Optus, Telstra and Vodafone and Three if you're prepared to jump through a few hoops) giving us more options than many countries. However, it seems that choice hasn't necessarily translated into serious competition on network performance.

Australians had the slowest average data speeds of any country in the survey, coming in at just 759Kbps. However, Optus' 3G network — which has proven popular with iPhone buyers because of the data deals offered by both Optus and Virgin (which is owned by Optus and uses the Optus network) — ranked considerably lower, coming in at a woeful 390Kbps average download speed.

In APC's October 2008 edition -- hitting newsstands tomorrow -- our mobile broadband cover feature reveals that Optus' 3G network has a latency of nearly one second, which also accounts for why its internet is so slow. Latency is the time it takes for a packet of data to be sent and then an acknowledgement to be received from the other end. Unless many concurrent requests can be sent, long latency can dramatically slow down data throughput. Mobile phones don't typically make many concurrent requests when browsing webpages, as they need to work on a variety of networks right down to dialup-speed GPRS.

Telstra management might gloat about its comparatively strong performance with a 990Kbps average download speed, the third-fastest overall in the survey. However, that's still only a fraction of the 3Mbps downloads which Telstra claims a typical Next G user will experience, suggesting that iPhone users aren't getting the full benefits just yet.

Wired.com didn't analyse Vodafone's Australian performance — perhaps because just 16 users submitted results — but it made the full survey data available, and a quick comb through it with a spreadsheet suggests that Vodafone customers are also in the slow lane, with an average download speed of around 511Kbps.

Last week's release of version 2.1 of the iPhone firmware is meant to have fixed many of the call quality and networking problems experienced by iPhone users, and might make a difference in future survey results. However, Optus has had other network management issues to struggle with, including an apparent inability to cope with the recent influx of iPhone users and a bunch of buggy network updates which have made its network unavailable for extended periods of time.

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Ket (New user):

NO HSDPA connection at all since this morning!! My HTC smartphone did show a 3-4 bar of "H", but just couldn't connect! Not even GPRS! Good job Optus!

K

16 September 2008, 10:03 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dan Warne (Administrator):

I found when I was on Optus (until all these problems started happening recently) that the only way I could get any sort of working coverage with Optus was to disable 3G on my phone. Argh...

16 September 2008, 10:26 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

How disappointing for Optus...

16 September 2008, 11:52 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Metal_Gman (New user):

To be honest. I'm not really sure what all the fuss is. I've got a new Huawei E169 mem stick modem. And generally get fantastic HSDPA connections. In the melbourne metropolitan area I generally manage 100kb/s-200kb/s download speed. Even on the train between melbourne and geelong. There's only one spot it drops to GPRS. Otherwise it maintains an average download speed of 100kb/s. Coverage outside metropolitan areas is, I will admit, questionable. Though, look to the network expansion on the 900mhz UMTS band, as long as you have a newer device supporting it, you should have no issues.

16 September 2008, 3:23 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Eps (User):

Quoting Metal_Gman:
To be honest. I'm not really sure what all the fuss is.

I have to agree... I've been using my iPhone out and about for 3g browsing almost constantly since I bought it (public transport is horrific and slow in Melbourne!) and I've only once had an issue with speed. Most sites are zippy and barely slower (at least to the naked eye) than my fast adsl connection at home. ...That even includes the lolcats pages my girlfriend steals my phone to view constantly.

Several threads on whirlpool have also noted increased download rates in the last two weeks from the Optus network so I'd consider this data to be out of date. Again the devices mostly using the service aren't downloading big files so it is more about availability than anything - some thing I hope Optus is working hard to increase. Speaking of which I feel kind of bummed that Optus is rolling out their major expansion on a band not supported by the iPhone. (Though I knew that before buying it.)

I'm all for kicking carriers who don't ever do anything productive for the market though in this case Optus has really gone out on a limb and taken the chance to do some thing fun and new in Australia... I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt for the next little while and maybe the forum trolls and anti-fanboys should too.

Though maybe APC could do a piece on some thing that _really_ is broken: The Optus billing system!

16 September 2008, 5:53 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dan Warne (Administrator):

Quoting Metal_Gman:
To be honest. I'm not really sure what all the fuss is.

Quoting Metal_Gman:
I generally manage 100kb/s-200kb/s download speed.

There's your problem right there. 100 - 200Kbit/s is hardly broadband in any sense of the word. Considering on Next G you can get megabits per second, 100 - 200Kbit/s is poor.

The 1 second latency is also atrocious.

As someone who'd been with Optus for 14 years I thought web browsing on mobile networks was inherently slow and laggy -- until I tried Next G on my mobile and discovered pages loaded at least twice as fast. Well worth the extra $9 a month I'm paying to be on Telstra instead of Optus... (Optus $79 Blackberry cap vs Telstra $49 cap + $39 Blackberry plan).

16 September 2008, 8:55 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Metal_Gman (New user):

Sorry. Meant to say "Kilobytes", thought people would realise that when I referred to 'download' speed. The connection speed itself cruises between 1mbit-3mbit at best. Completely acceptable.

17 September 2008, 1:31 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

McBanjo (User):

I'm only on GPRS with Virgin and what I'm most annoyed with is the complete dropouts at what seem to be peak times. These are the times when I've most wanted to use the data plan I paid for. It really brings down the value of having data if you can't access it when you most want to.

16 September 2008, 7:03 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dan Warne (Administrator):

Yes, that's the other thing that was driving me nuts about being on Optus. On the 3G network, I kept getting calls from people where I'd hear them for a few seconds then it would cut out to dead silence -- and never return. The only way I could get reliable voice calls was to switch whatever phone I was using to 2G mode. I had this problem on several different brands/types of handsets, so it was definitely a network problem, not a handset problem.

16 September 2008, 8:57 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

tfacter (User):

argh i so agree its a unreliable donkey... it was down in ferntree gully(VIC) this afternoon and i had full bars.. oh and that was on my iphone 3g which i can now say seems to get more reception which im loving (2.1) just no data blasted optus.. can i ask a question of all of us.. we already knew optus was like this yet we allowed ourselves to be screwed by them again.... why???

17 September 2008, 3:41 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

David Neiger (APC staff):

I work out of several offices and I too am on Optus. In my East St Kilda office I get hardly any signal inside so not surprisingly download speeds are slow (around 90kbps). Take the notebook outside for full coverage and I can get up to 120kbps - I have yet to see anything faster.

In Bentleigh speeds are generally around the 80kbps mark peaking at 120kbps except after 5pm when pages time out and it might take 6 attempts to load Gmail or Google.

In Ashburton speeds are atrocious (despite being in line of sight of a tower). I am lucky to get about 60kbps with constant drop outs even during the day. I won't even bother using it after 5pm.

That being said I am paying Optus around $50 per month - a move to Telstra would see me handing over $130 for 10Gb (since 3Gb would be inadequate). I guess that it what Optus are counting on - if it is cheap enough people will put up with the pain. We'd all like to fly business class but most of us put up with economy and bring our own lunch :-(

17 September 2008, 8:44 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

displayname (New user):

if you look at the raw data from the wired site it appears they have screwed up in their analysis/conclusions. The data says that NextG is by far the fastest network for iPhone in the world. The Optus results are also dragging down Australia in the world standings by a big amount. Shame on optus.

17 September 2008, 8:44 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

goosmurf (New user):

I've been using Virgin's 3G service for a couple of months and whilst it was initially quite good in the last couple of weeks it has significantly deteriorated. Where I used to average ~50kB/s, or roughly 400kbps, nowadays in most cases connectivity is spotty (frequently flicks between HSDPA, UMTS and even GPRS!), and I'd be lucky to get more than 20-30kB/s.

Last night, sitting at home in Harbord, NSW, it was averaging around 3kB/sec, picking up only after 11pm.

I would not recommend this service to anyone.

17 September 2008, 10:42 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Metal_Gman (New user):

Right, my last 2bob.

Against you.

1. Locality - If your out in the stix, you're not going to get very good speeds.
2. Hardware - You have an old soap on a stick huawei modem or old unwired modem that does not run on 900mhz UMTS - Remember, fit for purpose.
3. Optus is NOT a business grade service. NextG is. 3G is older, less effective/less bandwidth.

For you.

1. Optus have OVERSOLD bandwidth, in other words, there's limited bandwidth in the inner city available. It may be wireless, but that does not mean unlimited bandwidth available, as the backend equipment has to be able to cope with the load. Poor management by optus

2. Optus stores/sales lack technical knowledge enough to explain to people in simple terms whether the service is fit for purpose. Or whether the hardware is capable enough to sustain reasonable speeds.

So.

On one end of the stick, you the consumer, are being unreasonable to a degree.

On the other end, Optus has rolled out a good cheap service, too quick, without the backend to support it or sales technical knowledge.

17 September 2008, 1:50 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting Metal_Gman:
3. Optus is NOT a business grade service. NextG is. 3G is older, less effective/less bandwidth.

Uh... Isn't Optus running HSDPA on their network now? And isn't that what NextG is (serious question... I can't keep track of them all now).

Additionally, both Telstra and Optus offer business grade services. NextG itself isn't "business grade". Bigpond services on NextG certainly aren't business grade (the business users I've seen trying to use it regularly get pissed off with it).
Put it this way... Unless you're spending thousands a month, Telstra don't consider you a business.

17 September 2008, 8:52 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

atmurray (New user):

Quoting Metal_Gman:
NextG is. 3G is older, less effective/less bandwidth.

I'm sorry, you're completely wrong.

NextG is Telstra's marketing term for their communications service of which the core network is 3G WCDMA. Telstra operate on the old 850MHz CDMA spectrum which in fact has less total spectrum and therefore thoretical bandwidth available than the higher frequency 2100MHz networks that other providers use. However, at 850MHz, a single basestation will have greater range and building penetration than at 2100MHz.

So, from a technical point of view, all the 3G networks are equivalent. The difference is the tower spacing and spectrum in use. This is where Telstra currently have the advantage, they operate on the lower frequency and have better tower spacing.

18 September 2008, 9:24 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Metal_Gman (New user):

Eerrrr. Oops. My bad from a technological point of view. Though my argument still stands, if you want a solid business solution you can take anywhere, it's NextG. 3G hasn't been well enough developed to give country wide-support. It's a locality issue, you don't try and get ADSL2+ with a provider that has no dslam ports, rather than the provider in the same exchange that does.

18 September 2008, 2:25 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Terry (New user):

The Wired.com article is from August 25 (ie. almost a month ago), with the sample data being taken prior to that. And if you read the comments there people are berating it saying how invalid the data is based on the fact they used a single server that at one stage during the test was overloaded and was the cause of some of the slows.

The only thing this article shows is that monthly magazines contain information too far out of date by the time they come out, and of course that APC are too lazy to do the survey themselves and come up with a more accurate and up to date survey.

19 September 2008, 1:27 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

LostBenji (User):

Optus is just crap regardless of the way its used.

20 September 2008, 4:42 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

ozmarky (New user):

Yeah but try using Vodafone - a friend has messages taking half hour to come through and calls going to 'phone out of range or switched off' message. Hopefully Optus continuing upgrading of network will solve issues - dunno if in short or long term though. Personally I'm not buying an iphone until I can send/receive MMS and record video.

21 September 2008, 12:57 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Yor G (New user):

I just scored an average of 830 Kbps using Speedtest and Speed test from the app store. This is also after the 2.2 update. Oh yes I am also with Virgin.

23 November 2008, 1:52 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend

timz (New user):

finally australians are waking up to the fact that the REAL "yes" Optus has gone - the original company was sold to SingTel - the Singapore version of Telstra. Perhaps now people will realise that their mobile phone contracts are the most expensive in Australia, but still running on a third-rate network. Singaporeans have always been arrogant - just ask any chinese-Australian!

01 March 2010, 8:49 PM (3 weeks ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (Senior Forumologist):

Way to reply to a near 18 month old article... Did it occur to you that perhaps this article was now incorrect due to age? Or did you just see an article about Optus, and feel the need to post a near-racist comment?

01 March 2010, 8:57 PM (3 weeks ago)report abuse Send to a friend