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TPG takes out third NBN speed-monitoring report

TPG has taken out the third National Broadband Network (NBN) speed-monitoring report, with MyRepublic again coming last across most categories.
According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report [PDF], TPG delivered 88.7 percent of its maximum plan speeds overall and 88.4 percent during busy hours for downloads.
It was followed by Aussie Broadband — the winner of the previous report — at 87 percent overall and 85.8 percent in busy hours; iiNet, at 85.9 percent overall and 84.8 percent in busy hours; Optus, at 84.9 percent overall and 84 percent in busy hours; Telstra, at 83.9 percent overall and 83.5 percent in busy hours; and MyRepublic, at 83.5 percent overall and 82.1 percent in busy hours.
TPG likewise scored highest on average upload speeds, providing 89.2 percent of its maximum plan speeds overall and 89.1 percent during busy hours.
Aussie Broadband was ranked second for upload speeds, providing 87.8 percent overall and 87.5 percent during busy hours; iiNet was third, providing 87.1 percent both overall and during busy hours; MyRepublic came fourth, at 85.3 percent overall and 84.6 percent in busy hours; Telstra was fifth, providing 83.2 percent overall and 83.1 percent in busy hours; and Optus came in last, with 82.8 percent overall and 82.7 percent in busy hours.
“Industry says it is working hard to contact customers whose NBN connections aren’t able to deliver the maximum speeds of their plan,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said on Monday morning.
“We note NBN Co has reported that congestion has increased slightly in recent months. Our results suggest that ISPs not featured in this report could be contributing to this, as the overall results featured in this MBA report do not show an upward trend in congestion.”
Telstra again had the lowest latency, at 12.1 milliseconds overall and an average web page-loading time of 2.4 seconds. TPG’s overall latency was 12.4ms; Aussie Broadband’s was 13.5ms; Optus’ was 14.1ms; iiNet’s was 16.2ms; and MyRepublic’s was 17.1ms.
Average page-loading time for iiNet and MyRepublic was 2.6 seconds; Aussie Broadband clocked 2.7 seconds; Optus 3 seconds; and TPG 3.2 seconds.
The “very busy hours” metric — which takes the fifth-lowest hourly average speed measure during the 120 busy hours of the period — again saw poor results, with Telstra pulling down the highest score by providing just 71.9 percent of maximum plan speeds.
Aussie Broadband followed, providing 69.3 percent of maximum plan speeds during very busy hours, then TPG, at 69.2 percent; Optus, at 68.4 percent; iiNet, at 66.9 percent; and MyRepublic, at 61.1 percent.
Upload speeds during very busy hours were best delivered by TPG, at 82.5 percent, followed by Aussie Broadband, at 81.4 percent; iiNet, at 80.5 percent; Telstra, at 78.9 percent; Optus, at 77 percent; and MyRepublic, at 76 percent.
Aussie Broadband co-founder and MD Phillip Britt last week told ZDNet that the speed-monitoring reports — in conjunction with NBN’s Focus on 50 wholesale pricing discount and the mandate that RSPs advertise typical evening speeds — is “really what cleaned up the big boys behaving badly” in terms of provisioning enough connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) capacity.
“Ultimately, they weren’t provisioning enough CVC; they basically were going to get caught with their pants down,” Britt told ZDNet.
“NBN needed to fix the customer experience. NBN ultimately blinked first, rather than the providers provisioning more bandwidth.
“It eroded our competitive advantage overnight, because we were provisioning enough bandwidth, and suddenly everyone was on this level playing field from a bandwidth perspective … we’ve still come out on top [of the second ACCC report], but the whole congestion thing was a massive selling point for us, and customers were churning to us in droves because of that. The churn in market these days is not as strong, I think because of that.”
The ACCC’s first fixed-line broadband speed monitoring report, published in March, had followed the consumer watchdog forcing Telstra, Optus, TPG, iiNet, Internode, Dodo, iPrimus, and Commander to compensate tens of thousands of customers for not providing them with the NBN speeds they were paying for.
The ACCC is still seeking volunteers for the broadband speed-monitoring program in order to increase the pool of data.
The AU$6.5 million speed-monitoring program will take place over four years, with SamKnows appointed in December last year to monitor speeds thanks to the government providing funding.
The ACCC has also said it would need an additional AU$6 million in government funding to extend its speed-monitoring program to fixed-wireless services.
Recent NBN Coverage
Cars
This Wild Nissan EV Concept Is Blowing Our Minds

Nissan stated that a crucial feature of this concept EV is its Vehicle to Home (V2H) function. As the name suggests, the vehicle can store extra power and transfer it to the owner’s home, presumably via Tesla’s NACS standard. Nissan believes this would result in reduced strain on the power grid and also have noticeable savings in energy costs. Nissan also noted that the Hyper Urban could send power to the grid for the community and earn the owner money back for doing so. Its Intelligent Charging Management System also features AI, which can divert and manage power efficiently.
The Japan-based manufacturer wants Hyper Urban to retain its value even after it’s driven off the lot, something the Nissan Leaf struggles to accomplish. To do this, the company said it would provide hardware and software updates for many years. It would also allow customers to upgrade their instrument panels and graphic UI in the interior to stay current. But as for now, the interior is likely futuristic enough for most people with its kaleidoscopic triangle design. Nissan also wants the vehicle to feel like a living room with its foldable backseat and ample leg space to relax. While lying down, the driver and passenger can extend a middle screen in the center console to watch media.
There are three more of these digital character-based concept cars being announced. The release dates for them are October 10, 17, and 19.
Cars
How To Make Your iPhone 15 Pro’s Action Button Do Nearly Anything

The iPhone 15 series is officially out, and one of the features it introduced is specific to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models. That’s the Action Button, a button placed above the volume controls that replaces the ringer mute switch that had been on every iPhone throughout the product line’s history since its launch in 2007. Out of the box, it defaults to being a new version of the mute switch, one that uses a long press to toggle which mode it’s in and a short press to get an on-screen confirmation of what mode it’s in.
What’s available to you becomes clearer if you go to the Action Button menu of the Settings app. There, you’ll find a toggle to switch the functionality from the mute switch to toggling a focus mode like Do Not Disturb on and off, launching the camera app in the mode of your choice, turning the flashlight on and off, recording a voice memo, activating the magnifier, a custom shortcut, toggling one of several accessibility options, and No Action. That Shortcut option is where things get particularly interesting.
For the uninitiated, the Shortcuts app on the iPhone allows you to chain various functions together, including across different apps, all using a single command. And now, with the Action Button? Its power can be unleashed by a single hardware button press. So, how do you set it up?
Setting up Shortcuts to tie to the Action Button
To be able to use the Action Button to launch a shortcut on your phone, you need to create the desired chain of events in the Shortcuts app first. To do this;
- Download and install Shortcuts from the App Store if it’s not already on your phone.
- Launch the Shortcuts app.
- Tap the (+) sign button in the top-right corner of the screen.
- When prompted to Add an Action, which will be the first step in the chain of events triggered by the Shortcut, either pick one from the pre-generated Action Suggestions list or choose to create a new one.
- From there, select Second Action and Beyond to add steps as needed.
- After you’ve sufficiently laid out what you want the Shortcut to do, tap Done.
- If you’d like to change the name of your new Shortcut, tap and hold the Shortcut’s icon and then select Rename.
To tie the new Shortcut to the Action Button, it’s pretty simple:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap the Action Button in the Settings menu.
- Select Shortcuts from the Action Button sub-menu.
- Tap Choose a Shortcut, then pick the new Shortcut that you just saved.
Once you’ve got this down, the options for what you can map to the Action Button are practically unlimited.
Cars
Grab This 3-In-1 Knife Sharpener With An Angle Gauge For The Lowest Price Online

Imagine how effortless doing Sunday night meal prep or preparing holiday dinners could be with truly sharp knives.
One five-star reviewer wrote, “This is the first knife sharpener I’ve found that really works and is very easy to use… My knives are so sharp that I can shave with them.”
Bring more life to your favorite knives with this best-on-web pricing for the Angle Pro Knife Sharpener: $59.97 (reg. $199) through October 15th at 11:59 p.m. PT, no coupon needed.
Prices subject to change.
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