Many customers will pay less for plans on the National Broadband Network (NBN) than existing ADSL 2+ and line rental plans, according to an analysis by leading comparison site WhistleOut (click here to download). Price analysis of the four internet service providers that have announced NBN consumer pricing – iiNet, Internode, Exetel and iPrimus – shows the collective underlying prices for many NBN plans are cheaper, on a per gigabyte usage basis, than their existing monthly ADSL 2+ and phone line rental plans.
WhistleOut Director Cameron Craig, says, “On the NBN’s entry level speeds (12Mpbs and 25Mbps) we found consumers will actually be paying less than today’s ADSL 2+ and line rental plans for the equivalent usage, with savings of 23% to 43% on the entry level speeds (12Mbps). Our analysis centres on what people already pay for copper phone line rental and ADSL usage from the four providers.”
“However, as the speed options get faster on the NBN, consumer plans get more expensive than today’s ADSL2+ prices, with the highest increase being a combined hike of 66% across the four providers over today’s prices when you look at top NBN speeds of 100Mbps and mid-tier data usage,” says Cameron.
The high-speed network will make internet usage and interaction significantly faster for the majority of Australians. Currently, on the largest usage quota ADSL 2+ plan of 1000GB, it takes 9 days, 22 hours and 36min to download the 1000GB, compared to 7 hours and 9 minutes on the NBN’s highest possible speed of 100Mbps. Movies will take just one to two minutes to download on the top speeds.
“While 10 per cent of Australians already have access to high speeds via cable internet in metro cities, 90 per cent of Australians are on speeds from dial up to ADSL2+ with no guarantee of the actual speed they’ll get. Around 569,000 Australians are still on dial-up internet access. The NBN’s biggest benefit will be the democratisation of high speed internet access,”says Cameron.
Telstra and Optus are yet to announce their consumer pricing for the NBN, but have passed NBN Co’s certification process in readiness to test services and signed landmark agreements with NBN to share infrastructure. The network is forecast to be completed in 2020 and is currently being rolled out in states across Australia under the Regional Backbone Blackspots program and in Tasmania.