A new monthly report tracks service and quality improvements on our network, including network and bandwidth congestion. But what exactly is congestion?

As part of our ongoing commitment to end-user customer experience, NBN Co has launched a new monthly progress report to share with you how we’re tracking against key performance areas, including network congestion and network bandwidth congestion (also known as ‘CVC’).

But what exactly is congestion, what causes it and what are we doing to reduce its impact?

Many important links make up the chain that delivers fast broadband to your home or business. From time-to-time, factors within these links can affect your internet experience.

Links include the nbn™ broadband access network, your phone and internet provider’s network, as well as your own network and equipment as the end user.

The chain that delivers broadband to your home or business.

About network congestion

What is network congestion?

Your internet experience can be influenced by your internet provider’s network capacity – particularly during peak hours like evening standard time.

During off-peak hours, traffic should flow freely and quickly, regardless of an internet provider’s capacity. Some providers may have less capacity, but during off-peak times you may not notice this at all.

Your internet provider’s capacity is important during peak hours. When there is more traffic, congestion may occur if your provider does not have enough network capacity. This can lead to slower speeds and ‘buffering’.

More capacity means more connections, so internet providers that have more capacity can cater for more connections. This can help reduce buffering and increase speed.

What causes network congestion?

Put simply, congestion occurs when demand exceeds supply. This can occur when the take-up and usage of services over the nbn™ access network exceed expectation.

Measuring network congestion

Behind the scenes, teams are constantly monitoring our network to measure, assess and minimise congestion experienced by end users.

Each technology type within the nbn™ Multi-Technology Mix has its own threshold to indicate when the network is nearing congestion for our teams to review and address. That way, we can stay on top of any capacity issues, and ensure our end of the network is working properly at peak times – when you need it the most.

On the progress report: Each month, we’ll share how we’re tracking with network congestion.

About bandwidth congestion

What is bandwidth congestion?

Thinking of our network as a highway, NBN Co builds the highway and your phone and internet provider purchases lanes so you can use the highway.

People accessing the internet over our network are like cars driving towards their destinations. At peak times, there’s a lot of traffic on the highway and, if there aren’t enough lanes (or bandwidth) available, you’ll experience congestion and speed can be impacted.

The more lanes there are, the less congestion you’ll experience on the highway. This means you’ll be able to access the nbn™ access network to upload, download, browse and stream without experiencing buffering or delays.

The more bandwidth your phone and internet provider purchases, the better your peak-hour speed experience should be on our network.

What causes bandwidth congestion?

Bandwidth congestion is impacted by two factors – demand on the end-user side and the available capacity on the network side. Due to end-user demand, congestion is more likely in the evenings, or evening standard time between 7pm and 11pm. Again, when traffic is higher than anticipated, or a phone and internet provider hasn’t purchased adequate bandwidth, congestion occurs.

Measuring bandwidth congestion

Bandwidth congestion is measured by dividing the used bandwidth by the available bandwidth. Where this ratio exceeds 95 per cent, we consider it to be congested. To keep track, we measure these levels every 15 minutes.

A recent change to our pricing model resulted in providers now purchasing an average of around 40 per cent more bandwidth on our network. This is relieving congestion from an average of approximately four hours to 12 minutes per week.

On the progress report: Each month, we’ll share how we’re tracking with network bandwidth congestion.

Congestion on nbn™ Fixed Wireless technologies

What causes Fixed Wireless congestion?

Capacity on wireless solutions is not infinite like our nbn™ Fixed Line technologies. Take-up of the nbn™ Fixed Wireless service has been more popular than anticipated with higher usage at peak times (known as ‘concurrency’). This has led to unanticipated congestion levels. The good news is we’re progressively upgrading our nbn™ Fixed Wireless towers across the country to relieve this congestion as soon as possible.

Why is Fixed Wireless congestion different?

Due to inherent differences in the network technology, the nbn™ Fixed Wireless access network is designed to include higher levels of congestion when compared to the nbn™ Fixed Line access network. As such, we provide a separate insight into our nbn™ Fixed Wireless and nbn™ Fixed Line results for you on our monthly progress report.

How is nbn™ Sky Muster™ satellite congestion different?

You may notice that our Sky Muster™ satellite service is not included in the monthly report. This is because its congestion is measured differently to the nbn™ Fixed Line and nbn™ Fixed Wireless technologies. As there’s only a certain amount of capacity available on the Sky Muster™ satellite, to ensure it’s distributed fairly among end users, a Fair Use Policy is in place to help manage capacity during peak hours.

Looking to the future

We’ll continue to focus on congestion levels as part of our commitment to improving end-user customer experience so that our network meets the needs and expectations of all Australians.

As well as upgrading our nbn™ Fixed Wireless towers to address the additional demand, we’ll be launching new wholesale bundled offers that include generous amounts of CVC (bandwidth) capacity to ensure end users continue to have a good experience when they need it most.

Stay up to date with how we’re tracking across the network with our quality, co-operation and progress pillars.