515
Japan sets new internet speed world record — 4 million times faster than average US speeds
(www.livescience.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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Yeah Australia still hasn't quite caught up to the internet speeds some other countries had 15 years ago. It's kinda sad. I'm still sad the original (good) NBN got replaced by the janky NBN that's taken years to fix.
The other weird thing in Australia is that even the expensive fibre plans are asymmetric. Most countries that have fibre have a 1Gbps symmetric plan (meaning upload and download are both 1Gbps) whereas the 1Gbps NBN plan has a ridiculously low ~50Mbps upload speed.
I moved from Australia to the USA in 2013. Back then, I had ~9Mbps ADSL2+ in Australia, compared to 600Mbps in the USA. Huge difference. Now I've got 10Gbps symmetric in the USA for $50/month through a local ISP.
Where the hell are you getting 10Gbps for $50/mo? I'm paying $95/mo for 1Gbps
https://sonic.com/
I'm actually paying $40/month because I'm on a legacy plan that's $10/month cheaper in exchange for no phone or email support (SMS only) and no free addons like email, web hosting space, eFax, or VPN.
Sonic has caused the other ISPs to lower their prices here. For example, Comcast Xfinity has 2Gbps for $70/month, although that's not symmetric and only has 250Mbps upload speed. AT&T's fastest plan here is 5Gbps for $155/month.
There's a few cities throughout the US that have a similar service, or cheap municipal fiber (ran by the city itself). Unfortunately it's not very common though.
Im paying 125/month for 50 Mbps. Lol
Malcolm Turnbull is the one I blame most for that. It was his party's policy, but it was his charisma and perceived technology knowledge that sold it.
And he did it for the chance of being PM, not because it was the correct course of action for the betterment of the people he was supposed to be representing.
Imagine selling out an entire country's future for a promotion. What a cockhead.
One of my friends was part of the original NBN trial in Brunswick. I also lived in Brunswick but unfortunately I was a few blocks outside the test area. That was back in 2009 or 2010, and if I remember correctly it was 100Mbps down and 40Mbps up via FTTP.
15 years later, there's still a lot of people with connections slower than that. My mum's on a 12Mbps plan because she finds higher plans to be too expensive. Meanwhile, the slowest speed I can get from a major ISP in my area in the USA is 300Mbps.
That sounds like a coax network instead of fiber.
It sure does, but AFAIK it was only available to houses that use fiber (FTTP - fiber to the premises) until recently. My mum could only get 250Mbps max over the coax network before (Aussies refer to it as "HFC" - hybrid fiber and coax).
They do have a 1000/250 plan but it's ridiculously expensive compared to the "standard" 1000/50 (called "NBN 1000" - NBN is the National Broadband Network)
My ISP used to advertise about fiber because their backend is fiber but residential connections are coax with DOCSIS whatever. One of the downsides is assymetric up/download speeds. Upload gets reduced to favour download and you get these whack ratios.
This is amusing because practically every backend is fiber. You need it for speeds above 10Gbps, and all ISPs will have at least 40Gbps or 100Gbps connections in their data centers, sometimes even faster (QSFP can do up to 400Gbps).