The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released its latest Measuring Broadband Australia report this week, and it found that Optus had delivered the highest percentage of maximum download speeds during the busy evening period.
Optus is understandably excited about this finding, as it shows Optus has the fastest peak evening speeds of the carriers tested by the ACCC. Optus has spent a bit of money to get to this point, and so it deserves the recognition.
However, Optus plans aren’t among the cheapest plans available in each speed tier, and if you’re a bit more value sensitive, you might get better value from competitors who – might, yes – deliver slightly slower peak speeds, but for a lower monthly cost or with more inclusions side by side.
NBN Standard Plus (50 Mbps) plans
At this speed tier, Optus charges $70 a month for unlimited data on a 24 moth contract, with a $99 startup fee.
Optus cites a typical evening speed of 40 Mbps on these plans, too.
However, at $70 a month, Optus are well down the list. There’s plenty of providers charging less, and promising – if not delivering – the same evening speeds:
In this list you can see Tangerine that quotes 42 Mbps speeds for $59.90 per month for the first six months, then $69.90 afterwards. Spintel offers 40 Mbps speeds for a flat $64.95 a month, Kogan offers 45 Mbps for $65.90 a month and so does Vodafone for $69 a month.
None of these have a contract term, unlike Optus’ 24 month contract. Optus do have a month by month option, at the same price, but there’s a $200 setup fee, which none of the providers above are charging.
NBN Premium (100 Mbps) plans
At the premium speed tier, Optus charges $100 a month, quoting typical evening speeds of 80 Mbps. Again, there’s 24 month options with a $99 setup fee, and a month-by-month offer with a $200 setup fee.
Other providers are, unsurprisingly, offering a bit more for less.
Take Vodafone, citing 85 Mbps typical evening speeds for $69 a month for the first six months, and $89 a month after that. Kogan offers the same at $75.90 a month for the first six, then $85.90 after that. Neither has a contract nor setup fee.
There’s a lot of competition well south of the $100 a month mark, and with so many options offering no setup fee and no contract term, they’re well worth trying out until you find a provider you like.
When you consider that churning NBN plans can take as little as a couple of hours, changing providers is too easy. It’s not like the old ADSL days when changing providers might take weeks.
What’s your hot tip on NBN providers? Is Optus offering enough value for their pricing for you?
I noticed you never mention” Aussie” in your best isp’s, Is there a reason for this as other similar sites give them a pretty reasonable thumbs up.
In this particular article we looked at the top 10, and by the ranking we used, Aussie didn’t factor in. However, we do recommend Aussie – they’re a good company with excellent service. I use them at home, for example. – C
Don’t forget Optus are quite open to negotiating price, particularly if you bundle mobile and internet, as I discovered when signing up via their website chat. There’s no way I would have paid the listed price, but the guy really wanted the sale, and I was happy with offer in the end. Like any negotiation, you have to play the game a bit to get results. Demanding an unbeatable deal in first 10 seconds of chat is probably not a good approach for example.
On Aussie Broadband 100/40 over an HFC connection I’ve been getting a constant 95Mbps download and 36Mbps upload regardless of the time of day.
I’m the same Greg, except FTTC instead of HFC. Had the same speed experience since we connected three months ago, and it hasn’t changed – just perfect all the time.
On FTTC with them too. Some peak congestion and an NBN NTD when connection died. More importantly quick service by knowledgeable person. Optus service and customer service was horrible (migrated from Optus HFC to FTTC). Never again