news Senator Mitch Fifield, Federal Minister for Communications, has claimed that Netflix’s latest ISP Speed Index supports the faster rollout of the NBN under the Coalition Government.

In a statement, the minister cited the Akamai State of the Internet report’s ranking of Singapore as the “number one country in the world for broadband speeds”.

Singapore’s Netflix Speed Index ranking of 3.75 Mbps is “virtually identical” to Australia’s 3.36 Mbps, said Fifield.

Other countries ranked on the Netflix ISP Speed Index also show “similar results to Australia”, Fifield added, producing a list that included Hong Kong (3.64 Mbps), USA (3.61 Mbps), the UK (3.72 Mbps) and New Zealand (3.54 Mbps).

However, the figures quoted by Fifield represent the highest speeds for the July period, as measured by Netflix.

Netflix also publishes average figures for every country it serves, and in those Australia does not fare so well.

Its average of 2.79 Mbps puts Australia approximately alongside Malaysia (2.75 Mbps) and Thailand (2.74 Mbps) in the Asia-Pacific broadband speed rankings, and rather below countries atop the table, such as Singapore (3.51 Mbps), New Zealand (3.47 Mbps) and Hong kong (3.39 Mbps).

Globally, the US average is 3.26 Mbps, while the UK is rated at 3.62 Mbps, again both significantly higher figures than Netflix quotes for Australia.

The government’s policy of using a ‘multi-technology mix’ (MTM) of technologies includes both fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) and revamped HFC copper networks in order to cut down on costs and speed up construction of the national network.

This is contrast to the Labor opposition that advocates for a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) NBN.

“Thanks to the Coalition’s faster, more affordable rollout the NBN is on track to be connected to all Australian homes and businesses by 2020,” said Fifield.

He said the Netflix figures show Labor “can’t be trusted” to roll out the National Broadband Network.

“Labor’s 2016 election policy was to slow down the NBN rollout completion by at least two years – leaving Australians waiting for better broadband until at least 2022,” Fifield said. “Under the Coalition, the NBN rollout is powering ahead with close to three million homes and businesses now able to order a service.”

Netflix says on its website that its ISP Speed Index is a measure of “prime-time Netflix performance on particular ISPs around the globe, and not a measure of overall performance for other services/data that may travel across the specific ISP network”.

Image credit: Parliamentary Broadcasting