The NBN has blamed “gamers predominantly” for wireless congestion problems experienced across Australia.
“While people are gaming it is a high bandwidth requirement that is a steady streaming process,” NBN Chief Executive, Bill Morrow, told a parliamentary hearing yesterday in Sydney(via the ABC).
“This is where you can do things, to where you can traffic shape — where you say, ‘no, no, no, we can only offer you service when you’re not impacting somebody else’,” he continued.
Upon further questioning, Morrow admitted that NBN doesn’t have specific details of subscribers’ usage habits, but maintained congestion problems were caused by “people who do have familiarity with [gaming].”
It’s been noted that Morrow referred to gamers streaming content when services that offer streaming, such as Sony’s PlayStation Now, aren’t available in the country. It’s more likely that NBN customers streaming video through services like Netflix and Stan are aiding in congestion. As such, critics are picking apart Morrow’s comments, slamming them for passing the buck rather than admitting the NBN is facing a series of infrastructure issues that simply don’t need modern demand.
Back in 2016, the Australian Communications and Media Authority determined that Australian data usage was driven by video streaming and not gaming. In fact, the NBN’s own website says, “believe it or not, some of the biggest online games use very little data while you’re playing compared to streaming HD video or even high-fidelity audio.”
What do you make of Morrow’s comments — is he unfairly vilifying Austrailan gamers?
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