Almost half our NBN usage at peak times is streaming – we love our streaming!

Between 6pm and 11pm each weeknight the three million Aussie homes connected to the internet via NBN are churning through their data, and almost half of the data being used is streaming – yep, we’re in love with Netflix, Stan and Catch-Up TV.

The NBN announced today there are now three million premises active on the network, almost half of those homes using new “Multi-Technology Mix” connection types such as Fibre to the Node or HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coaxial – the old Pay TV network).

And when you throw all our usage into a bucket, it turns out 45% of it happens between 9 and 10pm – that’s officially peak hour folks!

On average, an Aussie home is using 161  Gigabytes of data each month, so check your usage allowance before signing up to a plan!

All this comes as NBN sets their sights on a better activation process for users.  NBN Chief Network Engineer Peter Ryan describes the problem of scale when it comes to activation issues “When nbn was activating around 3,000–4,000 premises per week across the country – which was pretty much the case until mid-2016 when our FTTN activations really kicked in – activation issues could be easily managed.

Fast forward to now and we’re regularly activating more than 40,000 premises every week, which means we’re pretty much activating a city the size of Canberra every single month. This huge increase naturally puts pressure on the customer service experience”.

With that in mind, the NBN say they have put in place new processes to enable installers to get the job done, and more systems to ensure the buck passing between ISP’s and the NBN don’t happen.

At the same time there is also a priority being put on some of the oldest issues in the network.  People that haven’t been connected for one reason or another where their neighbours have been – NBN is prioritising these issues and hoping they don’t continue under the new processes.

So – what’s your NBN experience?