Frequently asked questions

Measuring Broadband Australia is an independent study of Australia’s fixed internet. An ACCC project, SamKnows is running the day-to-day operations and sending a free SamKnows Whitebox to volunteers. The Whitebox tests the internet provided to the home.

If you have a Whitebox, you can view your own internet performance in SamKnows One – a web-based dashboard that visualises your data and helps you track your performance over time.

In turn, the ACCC publishes quarterly reports to help you choose the plans that work best for you (for fixed broadband only), and to encourage industry competition.

It’s simple:

Sign up for a free Whitebox on the Measuring Broadband Australia website.

If you’re selected, you will receive an email from SamKnows asking to confirm your interest and to provide your delivery address.*

You’ll be sent a Whitebox to connect to your router at home.

If you sign up, please look out for an email from SamKnows asking you to complete the process. If you are selected to participate, you should receive a Whitebox within approximately three weeks of signing up.

*Not everyone who signs up will be selected but we are looking for lots of volunteers so we encourage you to sign up!

Measuring Broadband Australia measures NBN fixed-line broadband and NBN fixed wireless. It also measures non-NBN fixed line and fixed wireless networks. It doesn’t include broadband over mobile handsets.

The Whitebox is easy to install. Please refer to the installation instructions here.

The Whitebox will only run automated tests on your home connection when you’re not using the internet.

We will collect test results for your:

• Download speed
• Upload speed
• Latency
• Jitter
• Packet Loss
• DNS
• Website loading time
• Results to particular applications such as Netflix

Your privacy is very important to us so we store your data on our own secure servers. We have strict policies about the data that we collect and do not view what you’re doing online. We also don’t share your information with retail service providers and your data is fully anonymised before any reports are produced. We only disclose service information to the ACCC and the network owner and operator to verify a volunteer’s service details are correct.

We also never collect credit card or banking details from you or ask you to pay for a Whitebox. We don't plan on charging volunteers for any unreturned Whiteboxes – it’s completely free to participate. For more information, please read our Privacy Policy.

We do use the data for the ACCC’s regular reports, where we analyse all the data collected from all the Whiteboxes across Australia. These reports go towards improving consumer information about broadband performance and internet performance throughout the country.

SamKnows is the global leader in internet performance measurement, with a track record in testing broadband and mobile connections around the world. SamKnows believes that access to high-quality internet connectivity is a basic human right and work with governments, academics, retail service providers, and the public to understand each aspect of performance, and make the internet better for everyone.

For further details and FAQs about SamKnows please visit the SamKnows support page.