Video streaming continues to stretch telco networks

Netflix's Marco Polo is one of the attractions luring people to video-on-demand streaming services.

New TV streaming services like Neon and Netflix have increased congestion on broadband services for the second month in a row, according to the measurements by TrueNet.

Increased demand for video downloads - especially where multiple devices are running off a broadband service - can reduce speeds and that has become more apparent at peak viewing times.

April TrueNet results continued a pattern as March where peak evening performance was down from the previous long term trend.

TrueNet measurements show reduced speed for file downloads from almost all locations it measures.

"Increased time to download websites is now featuring strongly, supporting the probability there is congestion in some networks".

"April is worse than March and we have yet to see whether this is the bottom of the cycle where investment in network capacity resolves congestion, the TrueNet April report found.

Truenet said a fall in popular evening hours was noticeably affecting Vodafone, Slingshot and Orcon and was evident in some ADSL, and almost all VDSL and Cable Time to Download results measured in April.

Orcon was still the quickest in 100Mb/s Fibre and VDSL, but is no longer the best in ADSL, or the 30Mb/s service.

Bigpipe has improved to be best in ADSL, and Spark has improved to be best for the 30Mb/s fibre service.

Vodafone Fibre is second best in Fibre, just behind Orcon; MyRepublic has improved from last month, The TrueNet report found.