Households that use high-speed NBN plans with a fibre to the premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connection are now receiving faster internet speeds following the rollout of NBN Co’s recent upgrade program, the ACCC’s latest Measuring Broadband Australia report has found.
In September 2025, NBN Co increased the wholesale plan speeds for certain NBN plans that use a FTTP or HFC connection at no extra charge for retailers. The upgrade was not available to any other connection types.
Further, the speed increase was limited to 100/20 Mbps (NBN Home Fast), 250/25 Mbps (NBN Home Superfast) and 1000/50 Mbps (NBN Home Ultrafast) plans, which have now increased to 500/50 Mbps, 750/50 Mbps and 1000/100 Mbps respectively.
“Our latest report has found that the recent changes to certain high-speed NBN plans have now been passed on to retail customers, meaning that most households that use the upgraded plans on a FTTP or HFC connection are now accessing faster internet speeds,” ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.
The upgraded NBN Home Fast plan, which now offers customers 500/50 Mbps speeds, was the most popular high-speed NBN fixed-line plan among the services monitored in this report. The average download speed on the upgraded NBN Home Fast plan during the busy hours of 7 to 11pm on weekdays was 503.9 Mbps, with 80.5 per cent of services on this plan achieving an average busy hour speed exceeding 500 Mbps.
Figure 1. NBN Accelerate Great – Average speeds per plan
While many FTTP and HFC connections that use the upgraded plans consistently achieved download speeds in line with the new plan speeds, there was a small proportion of underperforming services that rarely, if ever, recorded download speeds close to their new plan speeds.
These underperforming services may be experiencing speed constraints due to their in-home equipment. For example, older home routers may not be able to support access to 100 Mbps download speeds or higher.
“Consumers that are using older Wi-Fi routers may be missing out on the faster download speeds that are available on their upgraded plan,” Ms Brakey said.
“We encourage consumers to contact their retailer if they are not able to access the higher download speeds despite their plan being upgraded. We expect retailers to help customers understand if either their router or the network is preventing them from accessing the full speeds of their selected plan.”
“While NBN Co’s upgraded higher speed plans benefit large households with high broadband usage, many households may receive better value from a less expensive 25 Mbps or 50 Mbps speed plan depending on their household’s broadband usage,” Ms Brakey said.
Households that have a fibre to the node (FTTN) or fibre to the curb (FTTC) NBN connection saw no change to their broadband speeds. For these connection types, the fastest plan download speed available is still 100 Mbps.
“Consumers with FTTN or FTTC connections that would like faster internet speeds should contact their internet provider to check if their NBN connection is eligible for an upgrade to FTTP,” Ms Brakey said.
The report also observed performance improvements on Starlink’s Satellite network. The average busy hour upload speed on Starlink’s network increased from 30.6 Mbps in the previous quarter’s report to 46.2 Mbps in the latest report. The average busy hour download speed also increased from 189.3 Mbps to 197.2 Mbps
Background
Data for the Measuring Broadband Australia program is provided by UK-based firm SamKnows using methodology based on speed testing programs delivered in the UK, US, Canada and New Zealand.
NBN services may exceed their maximum plan download speed due to overprovisioning. This is where NBN Co provides a slightly higher data rate than the wholesale plan download speed to accommodate for the portion of a connection’s data rate lost in retrieving information that enables a download to occur. NBN Co does not currently overprovision the uplink for NBN fixed-line connections.