The NBN is meant to be fast, but that’s not always the case – and it’s not just because of gamers. Well, it’s almost never because of gamers, but let’s move on. The point is, not all NBN providers are equal.
An NBN 100 plan on one provider, say Telstra, won’t necessarily be the same speed as an NBN 100 plan on Optus, even though they’re technically the same product. The way NBN providers buy network capacity from NBN Co means there can be quite a bit of variance in peak hour speeds from one provider to another. But thanks to the ACCC, NBN providers are now disclosing the NBN speeds you’ll *actually* get if you sign up with them, not just the speed tier you’re connecting on.
To help you find an NBN plan that’s actually fast, all of the time, we’ve done the leg work and put together a list of the fastest NBN 100 and NBN 50 plan providers based on the evening speeds they’ve disclosed.
Before we continue, it’s important to understand the “typical evening speeds” provided by NBN providers are just an indication of the speeds you can reasonably expect during peak hours. There’s a myriad of other factors that can affect what speeds you’re able to get. These include the technology you’re using to connect to the NBN, the hardware in your home, and abnormally high usage in your area.
NBN 100
The NBN providers with the fastest advertised “typical evening speeds” for their NBN 100 plans are as follows:
- Aussie Broadband: Typical evening speed of 90Mbps
- Internode: Typical evening speed of 87.4Mbps
- Exetel: Typical evening speed of 83Mbps
- iiNet: Typical evening speed of 82.7Mbps
- Optus: Typical evening speed of 81.1Mbps
- Telstra: Typical evening speed of 80Mbps
- amaysim: Typical evening speed of 78.1Mbps
- TPG: Typical evening speed of 78.1Mbps
And here’s the pricing you’re looking at for an unlimited NBN 100 plan from one of these providers:
Telstra doesn’t technically sell any NBN 100 plans, hence the separate widget. Instead, you’ll need to buy the NBN 50 plan and pay $30 per month for a speed boost.
NBN 50
The NBN providers with the fastest advertised “typical evening speeds” for their NBN 50 plans are as follows:
- Internode: Typical evening speed of 45.9Mbps
- Aussie Broadband: Typical evening speed of 45Mbps
- TPG: Typical evening speed of 44Mbps
- iiNet: Typical evening speed of 44Mbps
- Optus: Typical evening speed of 43.65Mbps
- Flip TV: Typical evening speed of 43.27Mbps
- Dodo: Typical evening speed of 43Mbps
- Exetel: Typical evening speed of 43Mbps
And here’s the pricing you’re looking at for an unlimited NBN 50 plan from one of these providers:
There’s a couple of things worth noting:
- There’s a lot more variance in evening speeds across NBN 100 plans compared to NBN 50 plans
- Plans with higher evening speeds tend to be pricier on NBN 100 plans, but this isn’t necessarily the case for NBN 50
- Aussie Broadband is the only provider to public CVC capacity graphs for each NBN Point of Internet connection, which means you can get a more accurate idea of what speeds in your area will be like
- As it stands, Aussie Broadband and Internode are easily the fastest NBN providers based on typical speeds during peak hours
