Telstra Only Has One Customer Connected To Its Fastest NBN Tier

According to the ACCC NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report for March 2019, just one solitary customer has a 1Gbps connection on the NBN through Telstra. And Australia’s other telcos aren’t much better.

Of the 5.2 million premises connected to the NBN, just 77 across the entire country have connected to the fastest service – the one we were promised back at the start of the NBN project.

While the data published shows more people are opting for NBN plans that exceed ADSL speeds, around 60 per cent of NBN connections are still using 25Mbps and 50Mbps speeds. The fact fewer than 100 Australian homes enjoy a 1Gbps connection is a sad indictment.

I guess that decades of having the bar set so low with ADSL has set expectations at a level that means our fixed broadband speeds are far lower than those of many other developed countries.

[referenced url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2019/03/australian-broadband-is-a-slow-and-expensive-pile-of-crap/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2019/03/kid-slow-internet-410×231.jpg” title=”It’s Official: Australian Broadband Is Overpriced Crap” excerpt=”Australia’s global broadband ranking isn’t just slow – we’re also one of the most expensive places in the world when it comes to accessing that data. New research from vouchercloud has looked at the cost of fixed broadband and it paints a damning picture of where we sit when it comes to access to fast and reasonably priced broadband.”]

Although our overall speeds are slowly improving, the rest of the world is getting faster broadband at a quicker rate than us… and the gap is widening.

Telstra’s marketshare on the NBN will likely increase now that the HFC rollout is in full swing after being delayed while network issues were being resolved. Perhaps once that’s a little further underway, we might see DOCSIS 3 given a full speed boost and deliver the full gigabit speeds its capable of. Perhaps one day we’ll even have access to the full duplex 10Gbps speeds promised by DOCSIS 3.1.

But, until then, it seems that 100Mbps is as good as it’s going to get. Particularly if Telstra remains the dominant player and doesn’t even advertise 100Mbps plans, much less 1Gbps plans, on its website.

If you want the fastest internet speed that are currently available, your best bet is to sign up to an NBN 100 plan. While these plans won’t get you anywhere near 1Gbps, they should provide enough speed for intensive workloads and Ultra HD video streaming. Here’s a look at how ISPs price their unlimited NBN 100 plans. (Click on the table for more info on each plan.)

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