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As the resident NBN and home-internet expert for TechRadar Australia, I spend much of my time looking out for the best internet deals, and there are almost invariably a number of compelling options at every different speed tier — and these can be a great way to sense-check if you’re overpaying for your current NBN service.
When choosing deals, much of my decision-making revolves around two easily identifiable metrics: price and typical evening speed (TES). Typical evening speed is something all internet service providers (ISPs) have to disclose before you sign up for a plan. In essence, it tells you the download speed you can realistically expect to achieve during the busier evening hours of 7pm to 11pm. Being able to view the TES also means you can easily identify which ISPs ultimately offer better value — i.e. the ones advertising fast evening speeds at competitively low prices.
With almost all of the best NBN 500 plans promising to deliver their maximum 500Mbps speeds even during the peak evening period, it’s a tier where direct price comparisons make sense. However, things get a bit wobblier when you’re shopping for faster speeds, such as NBN 750 and NBN 1000.
Most plans on these tiers make more conservative promises when it comes to typical evening speed — for example, rather than the 1,000Mbps you might expect from NBN 1000, on these gigabit plans, most providers only promise evening speeds in the 820-860Mbps range. With that TES figure closer to 750Mbps than 1,000Mbps, it prompted me to ask a simple question: Is NBN 1000 actually worth it, or should you save yourself some moolah every month and opt for NBN 750 instead?
First, I calculated the current average monthly cost of NBN 750 and NBN 1000 plans, alongside the average TES advertised by the providers I monitor. After crunching the numbers on NBN 750 plans from 14 providers and NBN 1000 plans from 20, the final results were:
As expected, the results show that NBN 1000 plans do not, on average, get as close to their nominal 1,000 Mbps tier speed as NBN 750 plans get to 750 Mbps. The gigabit gap was quite substantial, falling 164.6Mbps shy of the tier’s nominal 1,000 Mbps tier, compared to a shortfall of just 19.8 Mbps for NBN 750.
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With the average monthly cost less than AU$10 difference between the two tiers — specifically AU$8.97, or 8.5% — the question then became whether the NBN 1000’s typical evening speeds are worth it from a value perspective. For that, we of course needed to do some more maths:
With NBN 1000 plans falling far short of 1,000Mbps in their typical evening speed promises (averaging just 83.5%), intuitively they seemed like they’d come out second fiddle to NBN 750. Surprisingly, however, NBN 1000 is slightly ahead when comparing cost per megabit for typical evening speeds: 13.8 cents for NBN 1000 versus 14.5 cents for NBN 750. There are a couple of NBN 750 plans that come in below that average at 13 cents per megabit — Kogan Internet and Spintel — which I've listed below.
In other words, NBN 1000 might cost more in absolute terms, but it does offer slightly better value per advertised megabit. If you need some recommendations as to which NBN 1000 plans are worth checking out, look no further than Dodo and Superloop. The cost per megabit on these two works out to be 13 cents, placing them among the cheapest for the tier.
Spintel Home Turbo Fast | 750Mbps | AU$69p/m (first 6 months, then AU$94.95p/m)
If it's the most affordable NBN 750 plan you seek, you simply can't ignore this option from Spintel. It has gone slightly lower in price before, yet it continues to be the cheapest I can currently find in the first year. Spintel is also only one of five providers on this tier to claim maximum plan speeds.
• AU$69 total minimum cost• AU$983.70 first year cost• AU$1,139.40 ongoing yearly cost
Kogan Internet Platinum | 740Mbps TES | AU$84.90p/m (first 12 months, then AU$94.90p/m)