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    Best internet provider in Atlanta 2021: Top ISP picks

    In all too many places, your internet choices consist of one cable internet provider or one DSL provider. If you’re lucky, you may get fiber as a choice too. Then, there’s Atlanta. Here in most of the metro area, you actually have real choices! No! Really!Before jumping into this comparison you should keep in mind that, just like everywhere else, the advertised prices are not the same as what you’ll pay. The “list” price doesn’t include taxes or fees. The prices will also vary wildly depending on what deal you get. Many ISPs offer cheaper packages that also offer you cable TV, landline, or 4G/5G phone services. These bundles are normally only for one or two years and require you to sign a contract.  Finally, before talking specifics, always check to see if there’s a data cap. Today, thanks to work and school from home, video-conferencing, and 4K video streaming, many of us use more broadband than we ever had before. One TeraByte (TB) of data per month is indeed a lot, but it may be less than what you need in 2021.

    The Fastest home internet in Hotlanta

    Starting with the fastest, Google Fiber actually offers, dare I say it, 2 Gigabit per second (Gbps) speeds! The prices for the speed are hard to beat too:Atlanta Google Fiber’s 1Gbps plan costs $70 a month, plus taxes and feesAtlanta Google Fiber’s 2Gbps plan starts at $100 per month, plus taxes and feesYou can also add home phone service for an additional $10 a month.

    View Now at Google Fiber

    AT&T no longer offers DSL, but Fiber is much faster

    AT&T also offers 1Gbps fiber in the Atlanta metro area. AT&T prices vary wildly, like most ISPs’ prices do, depending on the contract length and what other services — AT&T TV (Formerly AT&T TV Now and DirecTV Now) you bundle with it. Generally speaking:300Mbps is $35 a month500Mbps is $45 a month940Mbps is $60 a monthTo these, you can tack on additional taxes and equipment fees.You may sometimes see sites claiming that AT&T still offers DSL internet. That’s no longer the case. Beginning on October 1st, 2020, AT&T stopped offering DSL. Some existing DSL accounts are still being supported. But, AT&T will no longer offer it as a new service.

    View Now at AT&T

    Fast internet for apartment buildings, townhouse complexes, and businesses

    Unlike the other ISPs, you may not have heard of Yomura Fiber. They’re a new fiber company that sells mostly to businesses and apartment buildings. In Atlanta, they’re available downtown and are coming to Avondale Estates, Decatur, and Buckhead. They’re also deploying point-to-point wireless internet, Yomura Air, in the Atlanta area. Yomura gigabit fiber costs $99 a month. Businesses may also want to talk to them about their 10Gbps service, which runs $999 a month.

    View Now at Yomura

    Small ISP, big bandwidth

    Atlanta-based Gigamonster is another small ISP that delivers big bandwidth. Instead of a pure fiber to your doorstep approach, Gigamon delivers fiber to the building or neighborhood and then uses cable for the last few feet. With this “Scary Fast internet” service, you still get up to 1Gbps speeds. Gigamonster prices, because its services come via apartment building owners and townhouse communities, vary. They are usually comparable to the otherGbps ISP prices.

    View Now at Gigamonster

    This cable ISP promises up to 1.2Gbps speeds

    Xfinity from Comcast offers cable internet with speeds of up to 1.2Gbps. Its prices vary depending on your speed, you can go as slow as 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) for $46 a month with autopay and e-billing. On the high side, 1.2Gbps, if available, will run you $106 a month if you agreed to autopay and e-billing. As usual, package deals may reduce your internet costs.

    View Now at Xfinity from Comcast

    Solid internet cable service

    Charter/Spectrum also provides cable internet to greater Atlanta. Speeds and prices are: 200Mbps starting at $50940Mbps for $110I use, and like, the top-end of this service myself to the north of Atlanta in Asheville, NC. 

    View Now at Charter-Spectrum

    Take what I’ve told you here as a starting point. It’s a pain, but you really need to check out the available plans and take a long, hard look at hidden fees and data caps. All of these change at the drop of a Braves fly ball.  Then, and only then, you will be able to make a smart internet decision. But, look at it this way, at least in Atlanta most of you actually will have choices to make.  In most places, you’ve got no real choice at all.

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    Best internet provider in Nashville 2021: Top ISP picks

    OK, so Nashville Tennesee isn’t Chattanooga, which, with its EPB Fiber Optics’ 10 Gigabit per second (Gbps), has the fastest community internet in the country. But Nashville has far more choices than the single fiber-optic Internet Service Provider (ISP), one cable internet provider, or one DSL ISP that many cities and towns are stuck with today. No, Nashville has lots of hot internet choices as well as hot country music venues.  But before diving into Nashville’s top ISP picks, keep in mind that, just like everywhere else, the advertised prices are not the same as what you’ll pay. The “list” price doesn’t include taxes or fees. The prices will also vary wildly depending on what deal you get. Many ISPs offer cheaper packages that also offer you cable TV, landline, or 4G/5G phone services. These bundles are normally only for one or two years and require you to sign a contract.  In addition, not all speeds are available everywhere. For example, I have friends who can 940 Megabit per second (Mbps) AT&T Fiber in some parts of town while friends in Brentwood tell me they can only get 100Mbps.  Also, before subscribing to a service, always check to see if there’s a data cap. Today, thanks to work and school from home, video-conferencing, and 4K video streaming, many of us use more broadband than we ever had before. One TeraByte (TB) of data per month is a lot, but it may not be enough to cover what you use in 2021.

    Nashville’s finest and fastest internet service

    It’s no 10Gbps, but few people in Nashville who can get Google Fiber 2Gbps speeds will complain! The prices for the speed are hard to beat, too. Nashville’s Google Fiber’s 1Gbps plan costs $70 a month plus taxes and fees. The 2Gbps plan starts at $100 per month. You can also add home phone service for an additional $10 a month. Another Google Fiber plus is it has no data caps. 

    View Now at Google Fiber

    1.2Gbps speeds and widely available. What’s not to like?

    Google Fiber’s one problem is it’s not available in much of greater Nashville. Xfinity from Comcast, on the other hand, is available in much of the city and outlying regions. Xfinity offers cable internet with speeds of up to 1.2Gbps. Its prices vary depending on your speed, you can go as slow as 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) for $46 a month with autopay and e-billing. On the high side, 1.2Gbps, if available, will run you $106 a month with autopay and e-billing. As usual, package deals may reduce your internet costs.

    View Now at Xfinity from Comcast

    AT&T offers both fiber and fixed wireless internet services

    AT&T AT&T also offers 1Gbps fiber in the Nashville metro area. AT&T prices vary wildly, like most ISPs’ prices do, depending on the contract length and what other services –AT&T TV (Formerly AT&T TV Now and DirecTV Now) — you bundle with it. Generally speaking, 100Mbps and 300Mbps cost $35, 500Mbps is $45, and 940Mbps is $60 a month. The 100Mbps service connects you to fiber via a fixed-wireless internet connection between your home and the AT&T access point. To all these prices, you can tack on additional taxes and equipment fees.You may sometimes see sites claiming that AT&T still offers DSL internet. That’s no longer the case. Beginning on Oct.1, 2020, AT&T stopped offering DSL. Some existing DSL accounts are still being supported. But AT&T will no longer offer it as a new service.

    View Now at AT&T

    Take what I tell you here as a starting point. It’s a pain, but you really need to check out the available plans and take a long, hard look at hidden fees and data caps. Then, and only then, you will be able to make a smart internet decision. But, look at it this way, at least in Nashville most of you actually will have choices to make. In many places, there is no real choice at all.

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    How much internet speed do you really need?

    (Image: Shutterstock)When I first started using the Internet, it wasn’t that far removed from its Arpanet ancestor. When I was at school, I could connect with it at a blazing fast 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) over Ethernet. From home or on the road I could only hook up at 300 bits per second (BPS) using both a TI Silent 700 paper terminal with its acoustic coupler or from a CP/M computer using a Hayes Smartmodem 300. It was great in its day, but it was never fast enough. Today, I have a cable internet connection that, in theory, can get up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). It’s still not fast enough.That’s because back then all I was working with was text and even that was limited to 25 lines with 80 columns per line. It’s a different story now. Today, I do video conferencing, watch 4K TV shows and movies, and pour gigabytes of data across the net. I really can use a Gbps connection. But what about you?

    What internet speeds are recommended?

    Your local Internet service providers (ISP) will happily give you recommendations on their websites, but keep in mind they want to sell you more bandwidth. ISPs can also mislead you about what they can actually deliver. Over the years, I’ve been told by ISPs they could hook me up with connections they literally physically couldn’t deliver. And let’s not even talk about their speed guarantees, which more often than not are wishful thinking. So, here’s a good list of what you’re probably doing on the net and how much bandwidth you need to do the tasks without wanting to tear your hair out.That’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s not enough. For example, even if you only have one or two people in your home, there are more than 10 internet-connected devices in the average US home. Besides the ones you first think of — computers, streaming devices, and gaming consoles — there are also smartwatches, Internet of Things gadgets, and even pet-tracking devices. If you’re using these devices all the time, then you’ll want to have enough bandwidth to power all of them.For example, in my computer-happy home office I have over 30 internet-connected devices. If you’re a regular ZDNet reader, chances are you too have a house filled with net-connected devices. 

    How many devices are you using?

    For example, right now, my partner is streaming the 4K TV show Shadow and Bone. I’m backing up my video archives, which run to terabytes of data, to my remote Nextcloud server while checking e-mail in the background and looking at websites. In a few minutes, I’ll be on a work video conference. So, altogether, I’m currently using 100Mbps. When my grandsons are over, they go to school virtually, love to stream Paw Patrol, and love their online games, so we can easily crack 200Mbps. 

    What is your situation?

    Now think about your situation: Are you working from home? Do you have a large family with several TVs? Are your kids going to school online? Chances are you’re closing in on 100Mbps at any given time. 

    Do upstream speeds matter?

    Another factor that didn’t use to matter to most people but does now is your upstream speeds. Except on fiber internet connections, most internet technologies offer far lower upstream speeds than down. For example, my Gigabit plan gives me in real life no more than 800Mbps down, but only 40Mbps up. Yes, that still sounds fast to most of you, but if you’re doing a lot of online classes or video-conferencing you can run right into those limits and end up with a bad connection. 

    Will you get advertised speeds?

    You must also keep in mind that what ISPs promise they’ll deliver in the way of bandwidth often isn’t what you get. For example, the Federal Trade Commission, along with law enforcement agencies from six states, recently sued Frontier Communications, alleging that the company didn’t provide many consumers with the internet speeds it promised them. And, adding insult to injury, the company charged many of them for more expensive and higher-speed service than was actually provided.  In my experience, this is all too common. According to AllConnect, a company that helps users find the best telecommunication deals, “15% of internet users, or 45 million people, are getting less than their advertised speeds.” Of those, “Fiber and cable internet have the biggest gap – with most people getting, on average, about 55% of the speeds they pay for.” Now if you could simply shop for an ISP that wouldn’t be so annoying. You’d just go with the ISP that actually delivers the broadband goods. Unfortunately, as the non-profit Institute for Local Self Reliance points out, “83.3 million Americans can only access broadband through a single provider.” 

    Are you a heavy internet user?

    Even if you are paying for high bandwidth, you may not always get it. ISPs often throttle your service if you’re a “heavy” internet user or during “times of high traffic.” To see if this is happening to you, run a speed test, and note the results. Then download and turn on a good virtual private network (VPN). Usually, your numbers will be less when you’re running a VPN. Security comes at a performance cost. But, if you get better speed with a VPN, odds are you’re being throttled.Finally, if you really aren’t getting enough bandwidth with your current plan and you have no other options, I hate to say it, but you can always pay for a higher-level plan to get the speed you really need.  

    What are the different types of ISPs available?

    If you do have a choice of ISPs and internet delivery technologies, I recommend, in this order, the following connection types: Fiber, the fastest of the fast; cable, can be good on downstream speeds, but tends to be much slower on upstream; and LEO satellite and 5G internet are both good, but they’re still in their teething stages and their performance can be erratic. Then, there are the connections I can’t recommend, but if you have no other choice in the matter, well then you have no other choice. DSL, when you can still get it, is decent with real-world speeds in the double-digit Mbps down and single-digit Mbps up. But AT&T is getting out of the DSL business so you can no longer get it. If your DSL connection goes out, I’ve had AT&T customers tell me Ma Bell won’t fix it. Traditional satellite internet companies, HughesNet and Viasat are better than nothing if you live out in the country. But their download speeds max out, in my experience, at 30Mbps. Upload speeds are stuck around 3Mbps. The real killer though is the latency. With 300 to 500 milliseconds between pressing a key and seeing a result, video gaming and conferencing are next to impossible to pull off. Both services have data caps that will slow your down speeds to about 3Mbps if you use too much data.Finally, if you’ve got nothing else, believe it or not, dial-up modem ISP services still exist. These are cheap but at a top speed of 56 Kilobits per second (Kbps) no one will want to use these today unless they literally have no other choice.

    Ready to look for another, better ISP or at least a better connection? I wish you luck. Me? I’m trying to find my way to a 10Gbps home-office connection.

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    Aruba rolls out enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E devices

    Aruba on Tuesday announced it’s rolling out a set of enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E devices, starting with the 630 Series campus access point (AP). The devices mark the first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E devices, which are designed to operate in the newly-available 6 GHz band.  Last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to open up the 6GHz spectrum band to unlicensed use, making room on the valuable mid-band spectrum range for Wi-Fi routers and other devices. The move amounted to the largest expansion of W-Fi capacity in nearly two decades. Aruba’s new Wi-Fi 6E devices allow organizations to take advantage of the increased capacity and wider channels in 6 GHz. Users can leverage up to seven 160 MHz channels in 6 GHz. The devices offer tri-band coverage spanning 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz, with with 3.9 Gbps maximum aggregate throughput for reduced signal interference. A new ultra tri-band filtering capability also minimizes interference between the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. All of these features should help support high-bandwidth, low-latency services and applications like HD video, videoconferencing, AR and VR or IoT. This kind of support is growing more critical for enterprises, now that the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up digital transformation efforts. Meanwhile, the market for Wi-Fi 6E devices doesn’t just include the US. Aruba notes that since the FCC decision to open the 6 GHz band, 38 other countries have done the same. Market intelligence research firm 650 Group predicts that more than 350 million Wi-Fi 6E devices will enter the market next year. It expects expects over 200 percent unit growth of Wi-Fi 6E enterprise access points in 2022.The Aruba 630 Series APs will be available in in the third quarter of this year. The new devices are part of Aruba’s ESP (Edge Services Platform), an AI-powered, cloud-native platform for automating and securing edge operations. More

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    Ericsson warns it could lose out in China as Huawei reportedly shifts to software

    Image: Getty Images
    Ericsson provided an update to its risk factors on Monday, with the company issuing a €500 million unsecured 8-year bond. In October last year, Sweden banned Huawei and ZTE from the nation’s 5G rollouts and said telcos needed to phase out the use of any existing equipment by 2024. Due to this, Ericsson previously said there was a risk of “collateral damages from a weakened Swedish-Chinese relationship” and retaliatory actions from Beijing. In an update on Monday, Ericsson said it expected some of those risks to become real. “While Ericsson is invited to various ongoing tender processes in China, the final outcome remains uncertain and it is the company’s current assessment that the risk has increased that Ericsson will in those tenders be allocated a significantly lower market share than its current market share,” it said. The carrier equipment manufacturer added several countries have disaggregated radio access networks and were supporting “national communication network infrastructure champions” instead of choosing one of the usual suspects like Ericsson. “The geopolitical situation can have consequences on the entire industry, with an increased likelihood of further industry split, separation of global value chains, and separation of global standards for mobile telecommunications,” it said. On the other side of the fence, Reuters reported that Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei has pushed the company to lead in software as it was outside of US control.

    In June last year, Huawei and ZTE were officially designated as national security threats by the United States Federal Communications Commission, and was added to the US Entity List, thereby preventing access to hardware containing US technology and banning the buying of parts and components from US companies without government approval. “Once we dominate Europe, the Asia Pacific, and Africa, if US standards don’t match ours, and we can’t enter the US, then the US can’t enter our territory,” Reuters reported a memo as saying. In its recent first-quarter missive, Huawei said sales were down 16.5% compared to last year, but that this result was expected after it sold off the Honor brand. “2021 will be another challenging year for us, but it’s also the year that our future development strategy will begin to take shape,” Huawei rotating chair Eric Xu said at the time. “No matter what challenges come our way, we will continue to maintain our business resilience. Not just to survive, but do so sustainably.” For the full year, Huawei posted net profit of 64.6 billion yuan, but its growth in markets outside of China grounded to a halt. Earlier this month, the company revealed the extent to which it had taken a battering in Australia due to bans. For the year to 31 December 2020, the Australian arm of Huawei reported revenue almost halving from the AU$658 million posted last year to AU$356 million. Broken down, the company saw its carrier business continue to fade away, falling from AU$460 million to AU$217 million, its consumer business plummeted from AU$148 million to AU$84 million, while its enterprise revenue was a rare bright spot, increasing by AU$5.5 million to AU$55 million. Related Coverage More

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    NSW lightning and floods punish NBN FttC connection devices

    The company responsible for the National Broadband Network has told the Senate it has replaced approximately 47,700 NBN Co Connection Devices (NCD) used on fibre-to-the-curb (FttC) connections, with New South Wales having the largest impact. NBN said the main areas where lightning and floods resulted in NCD replacement were Penrith, Miranda, Frenchs Forest, Rockdale, Grafton, Mosman, Peakhurst, Glebe, and Campbelltown. The company further said, during 2020, it swapped 57,000 NCDs and so far this year it has replaced 44,300 NCDs. In March, the company said it was looking for a long-term solution to lightning frying FttC equipment, which was highlighted in the Blue Mountains area of NSW. Of the 19,300 FttC premises in the region, NBN said it swapped out 5,507 NCDs last year, and 4,570 NCDs this year. NBN added it replaced around 31,000 FttC distribution points so far, with 14,900 distribution points replaced in 2020 representing 2.14% of its FttC footprint, has replaced 13,000 or 1.3% of FttC lead-ins so far, and remediated 3.7% or 36,800 FttC lead-ins. Earlier this month, NBN said it would look to upgrade FttC users to full fibre if they wished to receive speeds over 250Mbps.

    On its fibre-to-the-node (FttN) technology, NBN said 4.16%, or 123,000 lines, should not hit its mandated 25Mbps download speed, and 2.54% could not hit the 5Mbps upload mandate. The company added some of that number were still in the co-existence period where NBN only guarantees 12Mbps down. As of April 21, 37.4% of nodes in the FttN had exited co-existence. For the 2021 fiscal year, NBN had an average fault rate of 0.77 faults each month per 100 active premises, or almost 566,000 faults for the 12 months. By technology, NBN had almost 222,500 faults on FttN and fibre-to-the-basement connections, 150,000 on FttC, 120,000 on cable, 51,000 on full fibre, 16,000 faults on fixed wireless, and almost 7,000 on satellite. NBN did not answer a number of senator questions based on the concept that forecasting items such as operating expenditures and profitability could harm the company since it has entered private debt markets and because it was not in the interest of Australian taxpayers. “Extending into debt capital markets brings a new suite of obligations and limitations. Publicly stating forecasts exposes NBN Co to potential risks of liability to debt investors and also to higher than necessary borrowing costs,” it said. “Forecasts or revised forecasts could be used by investors to drive up the price of the credit and force NBN Co to lock in higher than necessary borrowing costs. This is not in the interests of NBN Co, the Australian taxpayers, or our commercial partners.” The company also said because it is borrowing from overseas as well, it could be subject to foreign securities laws. “Continuing to publish or discuss long term forecasts could expose NBN Co to liability if investors allege that they relied on forecasts. This is irrespective of the rigour of NBN Co forecasting or the company’s belief that what is published is the best possible estimate at the time,” it said. “Taking these considerations into account, NBN Co determined that it would not be commercially prudent to release some information that may have been provided in previous Corporate Plans.” The company also said that as of April 21, it had 5,261 staff, of which 656 worked in its IT department, and 92 in its corporate affairs and public relations unit. The company said as of April 16, it had no workers in its internal field workforce that were “on visa or skilled migration”. NBN said it updated its standard contracts in 2020 with an explicit “no sham contracting” obligation. NBN contractors recently walked off the job in protest over the “NBN Co’s shambolic management and pyramid contracting scheme”. In its third-quarter earnings, NBN said its residential average revenue per user remained stuck at AU$45. It told Senate Estimates that it still expects that number to hit AU$49 across the period of its current corporate plan. NBN said it would hit peak debt of AU$27.5 billion in the 2024 fiscal year. Related Coverage More

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    This 2021 Cisco certification training bundle is on sale for just $69

    Cisco continues to grow, even in an economic downturn, so its future looks bright for those looking for tech careers well into the future. And now, network administrators looking to level up in their careers can get all the training they need to compete in the constantly-changing network technologies industry with The Complete 2021 Cisco Certification Training Bundle.

    The previous CCNA certification became obsolete in February 2020. Instead of having to take several exams in various subjects, you can take one exam that includes several of them for the current 2020 CCNA certification. CCNA 200-301 is now the industry standard for networking certification and the “Cisco CCNA 200-301” course will help you to achieve this top certification without becoming overwhelmed.While not designed for the complete beginner in networking, the “Cisco Certified Technician (CCT) Routing & Switching” course is meant to raise the level of competency in Cisco systems and devices field technicians need in order to help clients with their networking equipment. The instruction should be sufficient for students to pass the 100-490 Exam.Once you’ve completed CCNA certification, you can move on to specialized areas. The “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENARSI” prepares you for Exam 300-410 by covering how to implement and troubleshoot advanced routing services and technologies. While the “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENSLD” course provides the information you will need on design network architecture that is required for Cisco enterprise networks to pass Exam 300-420.You will learn all you need to know to pass Exam 350-401 in the “Cisco CCNP Enterprise ENCOR” course, which covers implementing technologies in enterprise networking. As a bonus to exam prep, the “Hands-On with CISCO Modeling Labs 1 & 2” will teach you how to create models and what-if scenarios for networks in the real world and for the future, whether you are familiar with VIRL 1.x or completely new to it.The courses in this bundle have all achieved a rating of 4.47 out of 5 stars from previous students, so there is no question about their effectiveness. Move up in your career as a network administrator by learning at your own pace everything you need for official Cisco certifications. Get The Complete 2021 Cisco Certification Training Bundle while you can get these 75 hours of lessons for only $69.

     Prices subject to change.

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    TPG Telecom customers fleeing 100Mbps NBN tier in search of a better deal

    Image: ACCC
    When it comes to users jumping between NBN plans in the quarter to the end of March, there is one telco that stands above all others, TPG Telecom. For the three-month period, the telco reported 468,000 fewer users on 100Mbps speed plans, but it saw an extra 335,000 premises move onto 250Mbps, and 113,000 extra 50Mbps plans. The end result meant instead of being TPG’s most popular tier in December, the 215,000 users on the 100Mbps now trail behind the 663,000 50Mbps connections, 426,000 on 12Mbps, 336,000 on 250Mbps, and 311,000 on 25Mbps plans. At the same time, the number of TPG users on the 500-100Mbps Home Ultrafast shot up in the quarter from 352 to almost 63,000 users. Across all NBN retailers, 100Mbps plans had 464,000 fewer users, as Telstra was the only other major retailer to see a drop of 11,500 plans while Optus connected almost 8,800 premises to 100Mbps, Aussie Broadband recorded 7,000 extra users, and Vocus raised its 100Mbps connection number by 5,400. On the 250Mbps tier, Optus connected an extra 89,000 users, Telstra saw an extra 45,000 connections, and in combination with TPG’s 335,000 number, the total rose by 477,000 across the quarter. The only other major telco to cross the four-figure threshold for Home Ultrafast plans was Aussie Broadband, which signed up an extra 2,300 users on that tier. The total across all retailers sat just short of 73,000 connections.

    Overall, the 50Mbps tier saw an extra 71,000 users, 25Mbps recorded 40,000 new connections, while the number of 12Mbps users dropped by 32,000. ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey pinned the customer shift on NBN ending its 100Mbps promotion. “New incentives offered by NBN Co have enabled retailers to allow consumers to trial or shift to higher speed services, particularly services with very high speeds of 250Mbps or above,” Brakey said. “Before moving to higher speed services, the ACCC recommends that consumers consider the value of new promotions, how long they run for, and how they align with their particular needs. “Many consumers will continue to be adequately served running multiple devices on plans with speeds of 50Mbps or below.” Looking at the customer shifts by connection technology, an aggregate 146,000 full fibre customers left the 50Mbps tier and 67,000 moved from 100Mbps plans, as a total of 189,000 additions were made to 250Mbps plans, and 55,000 jumped on Home Ultafast plans. For fibre to the node, 233,000 customers left the 100Mbps tier, and the 50Mbps tier recorded 268,000 additions. A similar pattern was seen in fibre to the curb, with 106,000 fewer 100Mbps connections recorded against 158,000 extra 50Mbps connections. For hybrid fibre-coaxial, the 50Mbps tier saw 240,000 connections drop off, and 289,000 jump onto 250Mbps. On satellite, there was no good news for NBN as 2,400 connections left the network. Related Coverage More