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Aussie Broadband review: Value-packed NBN plans

What's the John Dory with Aussie Broadband?

Aussie Broadband
4 out of 5 stars
4
  • pro
    High customer satisfaction
  • pro
    Ultrafast plans available
  • con
    Not the cheapest plans on the market
Brodie Fogg
Feb 12, 2024
Icon Time To Read5 min read

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Aussie Broadband review: Quick verdict

How good is Aussie Broadband? Just ask its customers. Aussie Broadband is one of the most highly-rated ISPs in Australia, with a 4.7-star average score across every user-review platform in Australia.

Aussie is also refreshingly transparent compared to the competition, offering up-to-date data on availability via CVC and POI maps on its website. 

Aussie Broadband's NBN plans are a little more expensive than most, but the reliable speeds and customer service will be worth it to some. 

pro
Pros
pro High customer satisfaction
pro Ultrafast plans available
pro Seniors bundle options
con
Cons
con Not the cheapest plans on the market

Aussie Broadband NBN plans

Month-to-month plans for all your speed needs.

  • Month-to-month unlimited NBN plans
  • Starting at $65 per month
  • BYO or pay upfront for a brand-new modem
  • Home phone and mobile bundles are available

Aussie Broadband currently offers NBN plans on every speed tier; from NBN 12 to NBN 1000, starting at $65 per month. Aussie Broadband NBN plans are all month-to-month and offer unlimited downloads with no additional fees unless you need a modem or want to hook up a home phone. 

A shortlist of Aussie Broadband NBN plans ordered from cheapest to most expensive can be found below.

Illustration of Laptop and Modem

Want to know which NBN providers scored top marks in our analysis? Follow the link below to find the best providers for value, speed and support in Australia. 

Aussie Broadband: Value for money

Buckets of value.

  • Not the cheapest provider
  • Lots a lot of value in features, bundles and customer care

In our NBN provider analysis, Aussie Broadband scored a respectable 3.9-star rating in our price category. It's not the cheapest provider available, but realistically, Aussie Broadband's NBN plans will cost you only a fraction more than you might pay with others.

It's the small value-adds that Aussie Broadband offers, like top-tier customer service, transparency on its CVC and POIs (more on those further down the page), and internet bundle deals for entertainment and home phones, along with decent seniors discounts, that make it easier to recommend. 

Aussie Broadband internet is also home to the most varied plans, with everything from the most basic NBN 12 plan to Ultrafast NBN 1000. They even created a new speed tier - NBN 75 - designed to fill the gap between NBN 50 and NBN 100.

Are there cheaper options?

Keen to know how Aussie Broadband's NBN plans stack up against the competition? Here are the prices and inclusions for some of Australia's cheapest unlimited NBN plans

Aussie Broadband plans for seniors

While we're on the topic of value, seniors can score a discount on Aussie Broadband's NBN + Home Phone Bundle. Aussie's Seniors plans can cost as low as $50 per month, or as high as $60 per month, depending on how many home phone calls you need to make. At the bottom two tiers, you will get PAYG call rates (that means you only pay for what you use), and at the top-end, you'll get free calls to all Australian numbers. At every tier, the NBN plan comes with 12/1Mbps speeds.

Take a look at Aussie Broadband's site for more information on Senior's packages and call rates.

Best NBN and Internet for Seniors
Light Bulb
Best NBN plans in Australia

Not sold on Aussie Broadband? Take a look at our picks for the best NBN plans in Australia across categories like best on a budget, best for gaming and more.

Aussie Broadband modems and hardware

What modem does Aussie Broadband use?

Aussie Broadband internet offers a Netcomm NF20MESH modem to its NBN customers. All of its plans are BYO modem, but if you want to buy a new NBN modem off them, it’ll cost you $179 plus postage. This modem includes 4x Ethernet ports and dual-band AC WiFi for fast wireless browsing across the house.

Need more coverage? It might be worth shopping around for other modem router brands if you know what you’re looking for. For around the same price, you can pick up a modem router like D-Link’s DIR-879, for example, which will offer you better range in your house and better speeds across all your devices.

Aussie Broadband: Perks and features

Fetching bundles, not many perks.


  • Fetch Mini and Fetch Mighty TV bundles

Aussie Broadband offers all the usual perks of a current-day NBN provider (month-to-month plans, unlimited data, etc.) but there are no bonuses or benefits like cheap movie tickets, shopping discounts or unmetered streaming. Those are great extras if you're considering Telstra or Optus but hardly essential.

What Aussie does offer in the entertainment space is, the David to Foxtel's Goliath, Fetch TV. At the time of writing, Aussie Broadband is one of the select few internet providers in Australia still offering TV and internet bundles.

Aussie Broadband's Fetch bundle doesn't include any Premium channel packs, so you will pay an extra $6 per month for every primo pack (otherwise, you've pretty much got yourself a fancy free-to-air machine).

If you're looking for a better bundle, here are the most popular NBN/pay-TV bundles currently on offer.

Aussie Broadband NBN alternatives


Some providers also offer home wireless internet plans (plans that use the same 4G and 5G networks as your mobile phone) as an alternative to NBN and Aussie Broadband can now count itself among them. In addition to its NBN plans, the provider now also offers a number of mobile broadband plans that range in $25 per month for 20GB of data to $70 per month for 220GB of data.

If you're interested in a home wireless internet connection, you can compare NBN alternative plans from other providers below.

Aussie Broadband: Support and satisfaction

Leading customer satisfaction.


  • 4.7-star average user rating
  • Fantastic support options

Aussie Broadband stands out amongst the crowded NBN market thanks to its 4.2-star average across Australia's various user review platforms.  

Aussie Broadband is one of the only providers that openly discusses its CVC (Connectivity Virtual Connectivity) capacity. Aussie even encourages potential customers to see how much is available at their closest POI (Point of Interconnect) so they can sign up with the peace of mind knowing they'll get what they paid for.

When you search your local POI on Aussie's website, you will find an up-to-date graph of the amount of traffic (downloads and uploads) vs. the POI's CVC capacity. If traffic meets or exceeds the CVC benchmark, users in that area will experience congestion issues. In that case, Aussie Broadband will buy more capacity from NBN co to meet demand, but that takes time. Aussie Broadband provides this information so users know what to expect in the interim.

Here's a sample from our local POI.

Aussie Broadband CVC

This graph shows that there's a fair bit of room for new customers in our area. So we could sign up without the risk of slow internet speeds. But if the black line gets too close to the blue line, users in that area could start to see some congestion. There are also outage maps, speed test tools, usage management, and loads of guides available on Aussie's site and app.

If that straight-up, no-nonsense approach to customer service isn't Fair Dinkum, we don't know what is.

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What is NBN CVC?

CVC stands for Connectivity Virtual Circuit and is what internet providers buy from NBN to sell and provide you with a connection. Think of CVC like lanes on the NBN highway. Just as a highway with more lanes eases congestion on roads, an NBN provider with more CVC at a POI can service more customers without hitting a bottleneck at peak usage times.

Contact Aussie Broadband service

  • Phone-based support from 8am to midnight AEDT Monday to Sunday via 1300-880-905 (closed Christmas Day and Good Friday).
  • Online chat available 9am-5pm
  • Self-service options in your account dashboard

How to sign up and connect to Aussie Broadband internet

  1. Signing up for Aussie Broadband is fairly simple once you’ve worked out what plan is right for you and can be done online in minutes.
  2. Select the right plan for you on this page
  3. Double-check your address can get NBN on the Aussie Broadband site
  4. Select if you want add-ons such as a modem or Fetch TV box
  5. Pick your installation date (if needed)
  6. Done!

Once you’ve signed up online, it could either take hours or weeks to get internet access depending on whether or not you have an existing NBN connection. If you’ve already got an NBN connection with another provider, you could be switched over to Aussie Broadband before you go to sleep that night.

However, if you’ve never had an NBN connection at your premises before, NBN will need to send out a technician to your home to get you connected. This could be in a few days or a few weeks, depending on availability.

If you need a technician, you'll need to be home for the NBN installation. This usually takes less than one hour to complete.

Aussie Broadband internet coverage


As an NBN provider, Aussie Broadband can service any fixed-line address with access one of Australia's many fibre technologies. Aussie Broadband just so happens to be one of the few providers offering Superfast NBN 250 and Ultrafast NBN 1000 speeds. 

Conclusion

Is Aussie Broadband right for you?


Like any internet provider, whether Aussie Broadband's specific strengths and weaknesses are right for your needs is going to vary on what those requirements look like. If customer service and flexibility are something you value more than saving a few bucks, then Aussie may be worth investigating as an option for your next NBN plan.

Aussie Broadband FAQs


Who owns Aussie broadband?

Aussie Broadband has been around since 2008, when it was founded by Phillip Britt and John Reisinger after a merger between Wideband Networks and Westvic Broadband. In the years since, it's grown to become Australia's fifth-largest internet provider.

What are some alternatives to Aussie Broadband?

We've got plenty more reviews on Australian NBN providers for those looking to compare NBN plans. When it comes to first-class value, we recommend reading up on Exetel. If you've got a need for speed, check out our Superloop NBN review. There are plenty of quality alternatives on the market if you're one of the unlucky few who still can't connect to the NBN. Not sure how fast your download speeds are? Find out how to test your NBN internet speed with our tool.

What is Aussie Broadband's coverage like?

Aussie Broadband offers fixed wireless NBN as well as fibre. Fortunately, you can use Aussie Broadband's availability check on their website to find out what kind of connection is available for your home.

How fast are Aussie Broadband plans?

Aussie Broadband internet customers get access to one of the broadest ranges of NBN plan speeds available. Depending on how much you're willing to pay, Aussie Broadband NBN plans to go all the way from NBN12 up to Ultrafast NBN1000 speeds.

When it comes to the most recent data from the ACCC on NBN provider performance, Aussie Broadband internet managed to deliver 97% of download speeds and 85.4% of listed upload speeds during peak hours. Although that first figure might sound pretty high, it actually puts them in last place when it comes to the 12 providers that the ACCC shortlists as top performers.

Brodie Fogg
Written by
Brodie Fogg
Brodie Fogg is the Australian editorial lead at Reviews.org. He has covered consumer tech, telecommunications, video games, streaming and entertainment for over five years at websites like WhistleOut and Finder and can be found sharing streaming recommendations at 7NEWS every month.

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