Factors Affecting the Performance of Fibre To The Home

When connected on a service with (for example) a 100 Mbps interface speed, you should not expect that everything that you download from the Internet will be received by you at 100 Mbps!

Important external factors affecting the actual speed include the capacity of, load on, and access data rate of:

• the destination host computer which you are accessing;
• the global Internet links between Internode and the destination host computer; and
• the backhaul network connecting your community to Internode.

In addition, local technical factors affecting performance include:

• the hardware that you use to terminate your Fibre to the Home (FTTH) broadband connection; for example the capability of your Ethernet router to firewall and address translate at these speeds;
• the performance of your home network; for example FTTH line speeds may be beyond the speeds achievable with wireless home networks; and
• the limitations imposed by the hardware, software and protocol stack operating in your PC.

Hence Internode FTTH broadband services can be described in terms of 'theoretical network maximum speeds' - noting that your actual speeds may be slower due to a number of factors beyond Internode's control.

Theoretical Maximum Speeds

The following theoretical maximum speeds are provided for the interest of technical enthusiasts. In essence, these are the specified "line interface synch speeds" of the last mile connection to the premises.

However these should not be relied upon in making a purchasing decision, as real world usage is unlikely to consistently achieve such speeds, due to the factors described above.

The theoretical maximum access speeds for Internode FTTH Broadband plans are:

• Bronze - 12/1 Mbps - which means that the theoretical peak download speed (from the Internet) is 12 Megabits per second, and the theoretical peak upload speed (to the Internet) is 1 Megabit per second. This is the basic service, comparable to an average ADSL2+ connection.
• Silver (previously 'Entry') - 25/5 Mbps - which means that the theoretical peak download speed (from the Internet) is 25 Megabits per second, and the theoretical peak upload speed (to the Internet) is 5 Megabits per second. This is ideal for most home applications.
• Gold (previously 'Mid') - 50/20 Mbps - which means that the theoretical peak download speed is 50 Megabits per second, and the theoretical peak upload speed is 20 Megabits per second. This may deliver a better outcome if there are multiple online users at your house.
• Platinum (previously 'High') - 100/40 Mbps - which means that the theoretical peak download speed is 100 Megabits per second, and the theoretical peak upload speed is 40 Megabits per second. This is a professional grade service, and you'll need a professional grade router to get the full benefit from it.

An Enthusiast Reports .....

An enthusiastic Internode FTTH broadband customer worked with Internode on optimising his download speeds; with the following result:

100 Megabits per second Internode FTTH Broadband : 9.55 Megabytes per second!

The 10.81 Megabyte per second peak in the bottom of this screenshot is as close as practical to a full 100 Megabit per second download speed, since their are eight 'bits' in each 'byte'; plus the unavoidable overheads of TCP file transfers.

As explained elsewhere on this page, speeds this high cannot be expected for every download! This experiment avoided many of the potential congestion points by:

• using a Mac - ! - with an Apple AirPort Extreme router;
• optimising the client with the Firefox add-on 'DownThemAll'; and
• using a local Internode mirror server as the source of the file.

Note that symmetrical and higher speed services are available for large business applications - contact Internode Business Sales for further information.