More than one in three Australians regularly endure buffering issues with streaming services, with some even reporting daily dropouts.
In a new survey from Finder, 85 per cent of respondents reported streaming content online using services such as Netflix and Stan. 36 per cent said they had issues with buffering at least once a week, with 16 per cent of these saying they saw dropouts every day.
NSW and Victoria topped the list for stream buffering issues, at 45 per cent and 43 per cent respectively. According to Angus Kidman, tech expert at Finder, binge-watching at home during the holidays could be contributing to these problems.
“With more people home for school holidays the chances of an uninterrupted streaming session goes down. As family time increases, so does internet usage and congestion,” he said.
The number of Australians dissatisfied with their broadband speeds has dropped by five percentage points since April 2020, however, with only 14 per cent now unhappy – a figure Kidman puts down to the pandemic, which forced the NBN and ISPs to keep up with higher demand for faster connections.
“The pandemic made many of us work from home in 2020, which meant NBN needed to up bandwidth. Despite the increase in bandwidth, many Aussies’ experience remains far from ideal.
“If you regularly experience dropouts, check your Internet speeds, record it, and let your provider know to see if they can help fix the problem,” he said.
NBN plans now regularly deliver 95 to more than 100 per cent of maximum speeds, and the cost of broadband fell by two per cent over the past year.
