Critical services report10 Dec 2020

On 10 December 2020, the ACCC released the second Critical Services report which examines how well NBN fixed line broadband connections were supporting consumers’ use of video streaming and video conferencing applications during the period September to October 2020.

Critical services report 1 - July 2020

On 31 July 2020, the ACCC released a report examining how well NBN fixed line broadband connections were supporting consumers’ use of video streaming and video conferencing applications during May 2020.

An earlier version of this report, issued on 8 July 2020 and temporarily removed on 10 July 2020, contained references to Zoom and Webex (Cisco) hosting servers internationally, which have been removed from this version.

Those results are not indicative of all the providers’ performances, which vary depending on their use of either a domestic or an international server.

Zoom and Cisco advised us that in addition to hosting video conferences on servers based overseas, they do host some video conferences on servers based in Australia, depending on the amount of traffic at any given time. It is not known how much traffic is off-loaded onto international servers.

The ACCC Critical Services Report is based on free accounts for video conferencing services.

Whether a video conference is hosted from a domestic or international server can depend on such factors as where the account is created, whether it is a basic or premium (paid) account, and the overall demand at the time.