Australians are well aware that the country's internet situation is pretty dire, but a new feature in Steam Stats really drives the reality home.
Steam download stats allows users to check average download rates for all ISPs per region, which is handy if you're looking to sign up with the faster provider. TransACT offers the highest average download rate among the country's Steam users at 9Mbps, while M2 offers the lowest at 4.3Mbps.
It's best to keep in mind that the larger providers' average stats may be affected by their greater coverage in rural areas, hence Telstra's lower rating.
Here's the rundown:
| Network | Average Download Rate |
|---|---|
| Telstra | 7.1 Mbps |
| Optus | 8.1 Mbps |
| Internode | 5.6 Mbps |
| TPG Telecom | 5.1 Mbps |
| M2 | 4.3 Mbps |
| iiNet | 5.1 Mbps |
| Primus Telecommunications,AU | 4.7 Mbps |
| Exetel Pty Ltd,AU | 5.3 Mbps |
| AAPT | 6.1 Mbps |
| TransACT Capital Communications Pty Limited,AU | 9 Mbps |
Which is useful information, but it hurts to compare to the United States, where Comcast offers an average 25.8Mbps. The worst performing ISP is CenturyLink, which comes in at 6.8Mbps–a pinch above the average Australian download rate of 6.6Mbps.
Then again, we are only 1.8 per cent of Steam's global traffic, with 1.5 Petabytes downloaded over the last seven days. That's tiny compared to the United States' 16.8PB,
Cheers, Ausgamers.
