The Guardian today reports a survey of 1065 people done by Essential for ACCAN (Australian Communications Consumer Action Network) that says Australians are paying an average $84 per month for their home internet connection whether it is through the NBN or competing services like 5G.
20% pay over $100
31% pay between $81 and $100
30% pay between $61 and $80
13% pay $60 or less
Also 74% of those using less that 50GB/month are still paying over $60/month, with an average of $71.
getting 'internet' is a bit misleading because it depends on the speed and data allowance your paying for….
you dont just buy internet access you buy a service if you're paying 60 bucks p/m but getting 12mbps and dont have umlimited allowance this is not a bargain compared to someone paying 70 per month getting 100mbps with unlimited
also there is a decent arguement if they company has local customers service or they are based o/s - Aussie Boardband has been taking maket share due to having 'good' service with local support
Yes, its a matter of data and service versus price. But the ACCAN/Essential survey wasn't very sophisticated in the question asked, and OzBargain polls don't accommodate complexity, so that can only be left to comments.
Maybe we need to calculate $ per mbps…
I do when I compare:
https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/207134/121108/screenshot_2025-04-22_165252.png
This was updated a while ago - my monthly rate has gone up since then :/
And I do compare $/mbps, but it's not the only factor. $/month is also a factor - it's why I didn't switch at the time. The only provider offering a "better" (beauty is in the eye of the beholder…) deal was AGL, and I just didn't want to use them for internet. Everyone else was more $ per month. Many were better $/mbps, but I don't need the increased speed; would be nice, but symmetrical would be nicer - I have noticed in my routers statistics that I'm being throttled on uploads: and no, that is not torrenting Linux ISOs, just normal non-"Argh"-rated usage.
@Chandler: Very cool chart, thanks for sharing!
But whiles at face value $/mbps is great, it doesn't account for congestion =\
Assuming a lot respond $60 or less, is that because they pay for minimal speed or are they finding better rates than those in the category above?
Likewise, high cost responders may need to connect via satellite.
$55.20 a month for 50/20 with MORE, CBA offer.
I was on 100/20 previously but I found no real world difference.
Pity they're not charging $50.20!
And agree that in most things, there's little real world difference between 100/20 and 50/20. Gaming, streaming, browsing on a 100/20 connection feels the same.
Of course, downloading large files sees an advantage (half the time needed).
Lucky I got CBA offer for 40% off for 12 months. It was $52.80 until they increased their prices by a couple of bucks.
Agree downloading large files is the only time you see the advantage in higher speeds.
When the 12 months is up, I'll look at churning. I've churned a couple of times, more seem less than I thought it would be, easier than porting a mobile phone number.
iiNet 1000mbps/40mbps $89.99 p/m.
Get it back to $39.99 iykyk.
How?
Yep, sign up for the 6 months half price deal iltrabroadband. Although I went from iiNet 100/20 to the 500/40 and barely notice a difference, so will drop down at the end so you can probably cope with 500/40
With internet, you get what you pay for. Not interested in the cheaper offerings.
Not always true
Yet earlier this year, in regards to internet, you posted:
, I know - if you pay peanuts, you get peanuts,
and didn't you reply to that comment saying?
That isn't always the case
Not always true. I used the word always
Where's the option for $20 or less.
$60 or less
That's a broad range. Some of us are paying less than $10 a month.
how do you get $10 internet?
@cloudy: launtel I'm guessing (pay per day usage).
but ezzaf is partly right …
alot of seniors (if signed up to some of the now "grandfathered" plans) - would still be paying $30-$38/month … for either 12/1 or 25/10.
[EDIT] : these were plans where had to show concession/disability card … my parents used to be on one of these plans.
@cloudy: I used to live on Telstra 1gb data sim (capped at 1.5Mbps thereafter) , raking over 50gb data usage a month with 4G dongle plugged-in to modem router connecting my PC / laptop / phone.
No lagging whatsover even playing youtube smoothly.
@TheFreaK: Mostly 480p.
720p had to pause to give it some headstart before playing, then no buffering in between.
Leaptel 1000/50 $89pm
Do you happen to have a leaptel referral code? $50 off :)
About twice as many of us seem to be below the $84 average as above it, so it looks like we're getting a bargain. If you ignore the difference between "average" and "median".
I take it the numbers have changed quite a lot? There's now 48 $81 or over, 46 $80 or under. So sounds like Ozbargain is about even.
Think if were to do a detailed study … alot of ppl are UNDER-utilising the service/plan that they've actually signed up to.
perhaps not bargain as such … but more soo … finding a particular service that suits our proper use case/needs … being aware.
I'm still trying to get my (non-IT GF) to understand - she doesn't need a 100mbps d/l plan (her use case == 2x netflix - NON 4k streams + minor FB use) … yet she's been mesmerised by ISP marketing (hey they even say on her ISP page - 100mbps == ideal for 2 person household with occasional netflix access).
personally I'm on a $60/month (25/8 plan) … which handles 2x netflix streams (non 4K) at same time easily.
but try telling that to my GF.
You need to change girlfriend
I went on compare the market girlfriend and the t&c stated *any output subject to mood changes can affect the outcome greatly 😂
I was looking for 50/20 but ended up on a $61/month 100/20 plan.
Am I more of an Ozbargainer because I got more than I needed because good price?
Yeah I'm in the same boat, I need higher upload options so 50/20 is the minimum I can go. Whenever they made that change a while ago bumping up 50/20 prices and lower 100/20 prices, now it's only like $4-5 a month extra to go 100/20…may as well at that point. Personally I just wish 50/20 plans around $50pm still existed. I need to churn my current plan so it is looking like 100/20 for $65pm for me atm.
who did you go with
25/8 is good enough but realistically that's worth probably $20/month. Teclos can probably charge $35/month. $60 is way too much for those speeds.
Idk where you are pulling these numbers from however the NBN's wholesale prices for 25/5 cost more than $20. Do agree $60 is way too much for the speed.
Amazing how the NBN is using decades old infrastructure but because they fu***d it up and now scrambling to fix it the costs are still rising and advancing speeds are locked behind unaffordable prices or physical addresses.
Decent speed and data shouldn't cost more than $50/m.
I bet the same arseholes protesting against investment into public infrastructure are at home streaming some 4K Dumbflix doco and shouting at their screens how society is crumbling.
I bet the same arseholes protesting against investment into public infrastructure are at home streaming some 4K Dumbflix doco and shouting at their screens how society is crumbling.
It must be a fun life getting frustrated at a person from your imagination.
Plus it was stacked with political cronies on huge salaries. Mike Kaiser for example.
Remember when Abbot told us no one needed more than 12meg, or in history when the Harbour bridge was criticised for being so many lanes.
maybe smarter people are planning this this roll out while dealing with some bad political interference along the way.
"We didn't need an expensive fibre NTU with 4 separate deate ports and the ability to deliver 4 separate services" surely you can understand the cost difference at this volume negligible.
Either way the NBN is infrastructure we need and was overdue being rolled out, if telstra was never sold off they could have built it.
We could have had fibre for half the price.
Well the LNP sure showed us…
It's like a toll for a road you use to use for free.
ABB 1000/50 and WFH at tax time.
I'm between NBN connected houses at the moment so I'm using iiNet 5G home internet, sadly.
Why sadly? Is it no good?
It’s better than copper NBN at least.
And luckily there is the option for wireless broadband.
My bro once rented a unit where unfortunately the only wired broadband option was to purchase through the site/property manager for a ridiculous monthly cost. He opted for Spintel's 4G wireless broadband to get him by during his 2yrs or so living there.
Similarly, we had to make use of wireless broadband when Exetel had trouble connecting NBN up to my wife's old townhouse for the first month we were there… someone labelled the ports wrong so the NBN techs were connecting up the wrong townhouse.
@Mugsy: I've had similar issues for the past decade with connections at various properties. Some techs are just absolute sh** at their jobs
@cobknob: I concur.
When we took possession of our new house last year, NBN was one of the first things I organised. Besides needing it to access the security cameras remotely, we wanted to make sure internet was working by the time we moved in.
I would say I average under $40 a month. I flip between using prepaid sim cards and NBN when there's free months. I download, not stream.
But if I have a lot going on, then I just pay the regular price. Its a lot to keep in your head, and it only takes one hiccup at the wrong moment to cost you more (either in lost opportunities or frustration) than you save.
What I'd love to do is get the gigabit plan and share it with a neighbour or two, but my relationships with the neighbours aren't at that level
Using Launtel: Thinking of value for money: Can be suspended!
My target use to be $60/mth or less but the products available (at least at time of my last sign up) were no longer suitable for our household's needs.
Currently on 100/20 @$69/mth with Superloop. Though a 50/20 plan would suffice (wife and I survived on that for most of our time together).
From a cost point of view, I miss the days of $50/mth with MyNetFone.
Is your Superloop price an introductory offer?
No, it was their black friday sale from last year. Price is for 12 months.
I wasn't a fan of the constant and eventually ridiculous price hikes Exetel made to my old 50/20 plan so initially wasn't keen on joining Superloop… but my 50/16 connection with FBB is more expensive after discounts than this 100/20 deal so I bit the bullet. Cost of living pressures have hit hard.
I'll see what deals are available when the deal expires.
Could give churning between 6 month intro offers a try since moving from FBB to Superloop was pretty seamless (on FTTP in a house less than 1yr old).
Aren't Exetel owned by Supernode?
@Chandler: Yep, Superloop owns Exetel which was why I didn't want to join them initially.
That last price hike was way more than what NBN hiked up their prices.
And Superloop/Exetel have a 30 day cancellation notification policy which I'll need to keep in mind if I don't want to pay full price before moving away from them.
@Mugsy: Yeah… Superloop recently hiked my 50/20 rate to their current pricing up of $81.11 (up from $69.95), so after updating my spreadsheet (courtesy of this post stirring my interest) I'm thinking of moving myself.
Exetel's 50/20 would save me $135 over 12-months. Even their 100/20 would save me $75, although again I'd be more interested in 40 Mbps upload than the 100 Mbps download; but there's no-one offering 50/40 and all the 100/40 cost me more (although Tangerine's 100/40 is only costing me $7.08 more over 12-months…)
My concern/issue is knowing which ISPs have good service. Superloop has been great - essentially no downtime (the occasional planned outage in the early hours of the morning, and those may/may not be NBN-driven). Their customer service hasn't been stellar, but I haven't really needed to contact them at all (just a couple of accounts queries/issues) so un-stellar has been acceptable to me, since the product has been great.
(I know there's plenty of posts here and elsewhere I could get a feel for it, but I haven't taken the time…)
@Chandler: Over the years, I have been with Exetel, Tangerine and Superloop. Exetel went down the drain after John died. I left them for Tangerine. Initially, Tangerine were great, but over the years have gotten worse and worse, which culminated in spectacular incompetence in December. At that stage I left them and went to Superloop Business. I found the Superloop Business plan to be more expensive than the equivalent residential plan and their support not living up to the promised SLAs. I got Superloop to switch me to a residential plan, which is a little cheaper, provides same speeds and features and same level of support as the business plan did. Superloop has (or at least had back in December) very long wait times for support, but at least they seem to be competent enough to help.
@peteru: Currently FTTC on Superloop 50/20 @ $81. You (or anyone) recommend upgrading to FTTP?
Just curious as it'd only cost me an extra $3/month (need to be on 100+ plan to get free upgrade), and I could drop back to the 50/20 once it's done (possibly immediately; not sure if they'd cancel the upgrade if I downgraded my plan before they did it…?).
@Chandler: nbn FTTN and FTTC days are numbered. Swap to FTTP as soon as possible. Ask for a morning FTTP appointment so there is less chance of cancellation.
I upgraded a family member to FTTP with Leaptel. It is 100/20 $69.95/month for 12 months. You can swap to any speed tier after FTTP is installed if you really want. Personally I'd stay on 100/20 since it's changing to 500/50 in 5 months time. Cycle between Leaptel, Superloop, Exetel and Buddy Telco (Buddy is Aussie BB) deals.
Time is precious, money not so.
I get the fastest available, tech should wait for me, not me wait for it.
Boy thanks for putting that into perspective, I quit my job so I have more time!
Uptime beats speed. You pay to get both.
If you're FTTP chances are downtime is a result of an NBN infrastructure issue, not a provider issue.
Might as well save some money and get the same experience
Different ISPs have different peering agreements here and OS. They are not the same.
I am on FTTP. There is a difference. Some ISPs use PPPoE and when their backend goes poo poo in it's pants your connection is unusable. Or when they f'up their routing. Or any other number of reasons that translate to ISP specific outages.
My wife and I use our mobile hotspot (which we have 300gb each of), given we're mostly at work, we use very little internet as we're almost never at home during the day. And it's enough to power HD on netflix/youtube etc. Our mobile plans are also 90% tax deductible as we're always at work, and we also sign up to JB's 24 month plans with $1000 gift cards. And then we buy a new iphone every year after trading in and tax deducting the phone too and use the gift cards for other things (got the new sonos arc ultra recently). So internet is basically free/we get a bit back in gift cards after all is said and done.
What about the many people that use the free NBN under the School Student Broadband Initiative? Surely this takes the cake!
Using the unlimited Felix mobile sim in my samsung A8 + router for $35 per month. Can get a bit slow and some websites haven't been loading properly for the past couple weeks but it's been okay overall.
This is meaningless without speeds, you cant compare minimum speed plans with 1000/1000
And not just that, but which connection type it is.
Eg 400mbit Fibre, StarLink and 5G are theoretically the same to the average punter, but I prefer any latency, jitter and packet loss affecting myself after a night out instead of affecting my internet connection.
It's hard to calculate; the rate in my head is $80-90/month, but I frequently hop ISP's to get deals. ATM i managed to nab the $360 off Optus for 1000/50, i believe that's $89/month so over 6 months (time for cashback), it's $29/month.
$64.99 / 5G TPG. Works well for streaming and some gaming.
This poll makes no sense without what you are getting for those $
I think it’s interesting, it shows the appetite for spending from those people on OzB that can be bothered clicking a poll, on just an internet connection, even without knowing the details of the plan.
$99pm 1000/50, it's a no brainer with two people working from home 2-3 days a week.
A better metric would be how many GB you transfer per dollar. Both uploads and downloads should be counted.
Over $150 a month due to HFC dropouts and thus the need to maintain two different connections, as a result…
I thought about dropping NBN altogether since 5G just works without suffering dropouts, but can get congested at times of the day, in particular during the London trading session. 5G is fine for trading, but not if I want to stream Bloomberg TV at the same time.
Have you thought about Starlink?
I’m $79 month for 100/20, what can I do to go lower?
I wish I could pay under 60 a month. I don't use very much but my options are limited.
Can't get NBN with That's Fubar? Their 25Mbps plan is a great bargain.
The difference between $70 a month and $90 a month is $240 a year. Take into account WFH tax deductions and it's even less. Not worth stressing about tbh… just buy fewer eneloops.
Lemme guess, the $100+ pm internet subscribers also won't bat an eyelid in paying $2500.00 for a flagship iPhone either…
Is that how much they cost? My shopper just brings me a new one when ever the battery goes flat, I had no idea such a versatile machine was so cheap.
currently paying $70 a month for 100/20 through amaysim for 6 months. when the 6 months runs out I'll churn elsewhere. in the last 6 months I've been three different providers, and guess what… it all seems to work exactly the same.
Thanks for posting your user experience.
Out of curiosity, when providers have you churned through?
I'm thinking of doing the same when my Superloop BFD discount expires later this year. Currently thinking I will cycling through the likes Spintel, Amaysim and maybe Exetel again (I loathe their ongoing pricing but will stomach them for 6 months if it means cheaper internet).
Leaptel were great, the only reason I left was price. Support was second to none, probably best ISP support experience I've ever had. Then Optus but only for three months for a flybuys deal. Absolute worst. Don't touch them with a barge pole (the internet itself was fine but the support is absolutely abysmal). Now Amaysim. So far they have been pretty good though I think they are really just Optus by a different name.
$44 a month or so for More NBN 50/20, though you have to have a CBA mortgage to get that offer.
You sure it's $44 a month?
I have a CBA mortgage and 'only' got 40% off so $55 a month for 50/20.
I thought 40% off was the highest discount.
Definitely $44 on the last few invoices. I think the offer is possibly grandfathered / not available any more.
Depends how many referrals I get thru OzB