Telstra fended off Optus to top Australia's Netflix ISP Speed Index for 12 months running in January, but only after Netflix failed to offer Telstra's rivals the chance split their streaming speeds into NBN and non-NBN connections.

Telstra announced the milestone with great fanfare last week, having ranked first on Netflix's Australian streaming speed leaderboard since February 2018. Telstra chief Andy Penn made particular mention of the achievement while announcing Telstra's half-yearly financial results, where the telco was in need of good news after profits plunged 27 per cent.

For the first half of 2018, Telstra's Netflix performance was neck and neck with Exetel, but Telstra jumped ahead of the pack in May. Optus then clawed that lead back so that, by December, it was only .02 megabits per second behind Telstra; delivering typical Netflix streaming speeds of 4.05 Mbps compared to Telstra's 4.07 Mbps. At this point, having led the leader board for 11 months in a row with the narrowest of margins, Telstra approached Netflix requesting the streaming giant split its monthly results into NBN and non-NBN connections. The move saw Telstra jump to 4.38 Mbps in January to secure a 12-month stint in first place, far clear of Optus which languished at 4.04 Mbps and Exetel at 3.99 Mbps.

Telstra's rivals were handicapped as their average Netflix speeds were dragged down by customers still relying on the copper DSL network. While Telstra's NBN-only speeds claimed first place, its non-NBN entry slipped down to fourth at 3.83 Mbps.