As if the progress of Australia’s NBN didn’t deserve enough criticism (albeit, largely leveled at its political masters rather than the delivery agency itself), the NBN Co has reported this week that, after a year of decline, it’s starting to see more connections using the lowest possible NBN speed tier.
In the latest Wholesale Market Indicators Report, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) reports that over the three months to September 30, 51,300 premises had connected via a 12Mbps plan, 19,400 signed up to 25/5Mbps plan, and 46,700 more premises connected with a 100/40Mbps plan.
However, these figures are dwarfed by new connections at the 50/20 Mbps speed tier (which is now, effectively, the standard offering) – some 385,000 new connections were made at this speed, and most of them were on the HFC network.
At the time of writing, some 2.1 million premises were connected on the two slowest speed tiers available – 12/1 Mbps and 25/5 Mbps. While it is good that the NBN provides speed tiers (and pricing) for those customers that really have no need today for faster internet, these speeds really are appallingly slow by 2019 standards. What we’d like to see is entry-level plans available at faster speed tiers, instead of selling these 1990s speeds to customers today.
The growth in such slow connections comes despite NBN Co advocating for the creation of more affordable, faster speed tiers – such as 100 / 20 Mbps plans, and 250 / 25 Mbps and 1000 / 50 Mbps plans (although those latter plans will likely be limited to HFC and FTTP connections for now, as no other technologies support it at present).
Let us know – are you on a slower NBN plan, at the 12/1 or 25/5 Mbps tiers? If so, what do you use your NBN connection for? Just a telephone? Casual use? Streaming content? Reach out and let us know!
