There’s so much going on in the world on a daily basis, but one constant and consistent issue is the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people directly impacted and millions more indirectly. One of those impacts – with the migration of workforce to their homes – is the stress load on our broadband services.
Ookla have been tracking the impact internationally and only a couple of weeks ago we saw that Australian services were feeling the pressure. The latest data update shows that, while we have seen some drop in speeds, our services are holding strong.
April 15, 2020: Mean download speed over mobile remained flat in Australia when comparing the week of April 6 to the week prior. Download speed over fixed broadband showed a slight decline during the same period.
Week on week, the drop in speed we saw as our workforce migrated home has all but stopped for now. Fixed broadband services saw a barely measurable drop in speed while mobile broadband services dropped by 0.27Mbps on average. This takes our services down 5% for fixed broadband and 11% since the start of March.
After a month of working from home, it seems our services have established and are continuing to deliver what we ask of them. Of course, there are some users who are suffering through poor connections – ask Chris or Duncan about their previous experiences – but that may well simply be poor connection vs the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re working from home, what impact have you seen on your services through the COVID-19 outbreak?
