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Australia is recognised for a handful of things; barbecues, hot weather, kangaroos, and shit Internet speeds to name a few. The phenomenon experienced by any Aussie who has tried to watch a YouTube video just to have it buffer and lag to the point where its painful to continue has been confirmed as a 100% reality by Netflix.

The TV and movie streaming service has just released its ratings for Australia’s leading ISP’s and if you haven’t picked up on where we’re going with this by now, Netflix’s findings for Australia’s Internet speeds are particularly grim. Surprisingly, the top ranked ISP’s (in regards to Netflix streaming speed) are TPG and Optus which both hover round the 3.30Mbps mark. Telstra ranks at number 7 (that’s behind Dodo and Exetel) at less than half the speed of TPG. The speed of Internet required to stream a standard definition DVD is usually between 3 and 10Mbps so even our top ranked ISPs are struggling. Don’t think about premium services either. If you want to stream Blu-Ray quality entertainment, it usually requires a benchmark download rate of 20Mbps.

With the NBN still a pipe dream for many Australians, it seems that we’ll have to bide our time by watching our favourite TV shows and movies at a substandard rate of quality or, god forbid, seek entertainment in the company of friends and family.

Luke Karakas

[Via.]

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