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Australians will have access to much faster internet speed plans under a proposal by the NBN to turbo-charge their already high-speed offerings with faster download and upload speeds.
The plan will see the 100Mbps speed plan leap from a download speed of 100 Megabits per second and an upload speed of 20 Megabits per second to a 500Mbps download and 50Mbps upload speed. The fivefold speed increase for one of the most popular plans on the NBN has the potential to lift Australia's ranking on the global speed charts from the doldrums to a more respectable place, well into the top 50.
Additionally, the NBN Home Super Fast plan will upgrade from 250Mbps downloads and 25Mbps uploads to 750Mbps and 50Mbps, and the fastest plan available, NBN Ultrafast, will increase from its current speeds of 500-1000Mbps to 750-1000 Mbps for downloads, and uploads will go from 50 to between 50-100Mbps.
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Speeds like this were likely seen as unnecessary in the early days of the NBN. Just 10 years ago, fewer than half a million homes were connected to the NBN, and at that time there was no Netflix, Stan, Disney+, or live-streamed sport. The average household had seven devices connected and used about 40GB of data each month.
Today, the average home connects 22 devices, uses 10-times more data every month, and has more streaming services available than the average person can list.
NBN chief customer officer Anna Perrin says "despite this explosion in data usage, many customers have remained on the same broadband plan for years. Our network monitoring suggests that some customers are potentially hitting their maximum speed on a regular basis. These customers may enjoy a better internet experience on a faster speed tier.
"The good news for customers is we are upgrading the NBN network to keep pace with customer demand. Fibre is the great enabler to deliver near gigabit speeds across the NBN network.
"We are on track with our national fibre upgrade program to put these incredibly fast speeds within reach of more than 10 million Australian homes and businesses by the end of next year."
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Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says the proposal is "consistent with the Albanese Labor government's objectives and will deliver turbo-charged speeds that would deliver significant benefits for businesses and households alike".
"Reliable, quality, high-speed internet is not a luxury or nice-to-have: it is essential 21st century infrastructure."
How and when this happens though is the big question, with the minister adding: "The government expects NBN to consult closely with its retail partners and work with them to enable these speed enhancements to be available for consumers as soon as practical."
From the NBN's perspective, it seems likely the changes are 12 months away, Perrin saying "we are proposing to deliver these accelerated speeds at no extra wholesale cost to internet retailers. By working together with the industry, we hope to deliver these accelerated services to customers later this year or early next year."
While the NBN may not be adding extra wholesale costs to internet providers like Telstra, TPG, Optus, and Aussie Broadband, those companies that deliver internet to our homes will incur additional costs to carry all the extra data on their networks.
Controversially, this proposal comes just months after the NBN and retail telcos agreed to new pricing structures, which those businesses would have used for forward projections of costs. As such, it's possible this proposal will take some time for the retailers to digest and support before then upgrading their networks to cater for the higher speeds, which will likely come at a slightly increased cost to consumers.
Industry consultation on the proposal closes on April 18.
