Search for an NBN 250 plan in Australia and you will get two answers: it was retired, and it is still on sale. Both are true — because the “250” on sale today is not the “250” that was retired.
On 14 September 2025, NBN Co replaced its Home Superfast wholesale product — 250/25 Mbps — with a new 750/50 Mbps tier for FTTP and HFC connections. If you were on the old residential 250 plan, your provider’s equivalent tier is now 750. Yet in October 2026, providers including Superloop and Aussie Broadband still sell plans with “250” in the name. The explanation is not a mistake: those plans are built on a different wholesale product, 250/100, which NBN Co kept — and they are sold on upload speed, not download.
What happened to NBN 250 in September 2025
NBN Co’s “Accelerate Great” change lifted three residential wholesale products for FTTP and HFC connections: Home Fast from 100/20 to 500/50 Mbps, Home Superfast from 250/25 to 750/50 Mbps, and Home Ultrafast from 1000/50 to 1000/100 Mbps. A new 2000 Mbps Hyperfast tier launched alongside. The change applied to the named wholesale products, and retailers applied the new speeds to existing customers — for most customers the upgrade was automatic and the bill did not change.
That is the simple version. The confusion starts because NBN Co’s wholesale catalogue contains more than one product with 250 Mbps download. The residential 250/25 product was replaced by 750/50. But the 250/100 product — 250 Mbps down, 100 Mbps up — is a separate, higher-upload wholesale product that providers sell under names like “Pro” or “Creator”. It was not replaced, and it is still on sale. When a comparison page says “NBN 250 is retired” and another says “8 providers still offer NBN 250”, both pages are describing different products without saying so.
The two 250s: 250/25 (retired) vs 250/100 (still sold)
The numbers after the slash are the whole story. The first number is download speed; the second is upload speed.
- 250/25 (retired): the old residential Superfast tier. 250 Mbps down, 25 Mbps up. Replaced by 750/50 in September 2025. If your bill still says 250/25, you are on a legacy product your provider should have moved you off.
- 250/100 (still sold): the high-upload tier. 250 Mbps down, 100 Mbps up — four times the upload of the old tier. Sold as a deliberate product for people who push large files upstream: content creators, photographers, video editors, people running cloud backups, and homes with security cameras uploading footage all day.
The practical difference is who each product is for. 250/25 was a download tier for busy households. 250/100 is an upload tier for people whose bottleneck is sending, not receiving. Treating them as the same plan because they share a “250” is how shoppers end up comparing the wrong prices.
Who still sells a 250 plan?
Finder’s September 2026 database lists 8 of 43 fixed-line NBN providers still offering a 250 plan: Aussie Broadband, Elevate, Escapenet, Launtel, Leaptel, MyOwn Tel, Pennytel, and Superloop. Finder’s average monthly cost for fixed-line NBN 250 plans was $110 a month as of September 2026. Those are the providers still selling a 250-shaped plan — in practice, the 250/100 high-upload product.
Two of the biggest names illustrate the shape of the market:
- Superloop Creator 250/100 — $82 a month for the first 6 months, then $102 a month ongoing, with a typical evening speed of 250/85 Mbps (Superloop’s own NBN page, checked 13 October 2026). No lock-in contract.
- Aussie Broadband Superfast Pro 250/100 — $114 a month (Finder and Canstar price-change trackers reporting Aussie Broadband’s 1 July 2026 pricing; confirm on Aussie Broadband’s own page before ordering).
Note what is missing from that list: Telstra, Optus, and TPG do not sell a 250 plan to new customers in their current line-ups. If a comparison page still shows you a TPG or Optus 250 plan, treat it as stale — some comparison listings are months out of date, and the 250 tier is exactly where stale listings cluster. Always verify on the provider’s own page before ordering.
If you are already on NBN 250: check which one you have
This is the step most guides skip, and it is the one that matters. Your next move depends entirely on which 250 you are on:
- Check your bill or plan summary. Look for the upload figure: “250/25” means the retired residential tier; “250/100” (or “Creator”, “Pro”, “Superfast Pro”) means the high-upload tier.
- Run a wired speed test. A 250/25 connection tops out near 250 Mbps down and ~25 Mbps up. A 250/100 connection should show upload well above 25 Mbps — typically 80–90 Mbps in the evening. A 750/50 connection should show several hundred Mbps down.
- If your bill says 250/25: your provider should have moved you to 750/50 in September 2025. If you are still on 250/25, call your provider and ask why you were not migrated — and check whether your bill dropped or stayed the same. Do not keep paying for a tier that no longer exists.
- If your bill says 750: you were migrated. The question is no longer about 250 at all — it is whether 750 is the right tier for you, or whether you are paying for speed you do not use.
What to switch to
There are three sensible moves, depending on what you actually need:
Move to 750/50 if download is your bottleneck. This is the direct successor to old 250/25, and it is often cheaper than the 250/100 plans. NBN 750 plans typically sit around $100–$110 a month, with the cheapest starting at $60 a month for 6 months then $100 (amaysim, per Finder’s October 2026 comparison). Aussie Broadband’s Superfast Fibre 750/50 is listed at $119 a month. For a household that streams, games, and works from home, 750/50 is the natural home for an ex-250 customer.
Move to 500/50 if you want to save money. 500 Mbps down is more than most households use — our guide to the best NBN providers explains why — and 500/50 plans sit around $95 a month (Superloop’s Family Max is $95 ongoing, per Superloop’s own page). If your 250 plan was really about having “a fast plan” rather than a specific workload, 500/50 is the value point, and it doubles your old download speed while doubling your upload too.
Stay on (or switch to) 250/100 if upload is your bottleneck. This is the one case where “250” still wins. If you regularly upload large video files, run cloud backups that never finish, or host game servers, 250/100’s upload ceiling beats 750/50’s 50 Mbps. You pay a premium for it — $102–$114 a month for 250 Mbps down versus ~$100–$119 for 750 Mbps down — so only buy it if you can name the upload workload that needs it. Paying extra for upload you never use is the same mistake as the old 100/40 trap in reverse.
If you are on FTTN, FTTC, or FTTB: none of this applies. The 250 tiers were only ever available on FTTP and HFC. If your connection is not full fibre or cable, check whether you are eligible for NBN Co’s free fibre upgrade (Fibre Connect) — our FTTP upgrade guide walks through it — because that is what unlocks the faster tiers.
The Fixed Wireless trap: a third 250
One more source of confusion. NBN Fixed Wireless plans also use “250” in their names — for example, a “Fixed Wireless Fast 250/20” plan. That 250 is a maximum speed on a wireless connection, not a fixed-line tier: typical evening speeds are far lower (around 160 Mbps down on Aussie Broadband’s Fixed Wireless Fast 250/20, per comparison listings of that plan). A fixed wireless “250” and a fixed-line “250” are not comparable products. If your address is on Fixed Wireless, read our Fixed Wireless guide before comparing any 250 plan against a fixed-line one.
What this means for you
- If your bill says 250/25: you are on a retired tier. Ask your provider why you were not moved to 750/50 in September 2025.
- If your bill says 250/100: you are on a current high-upload product. Keep it only if upload is your bottleneck; otherwise 500/50 or 750/50 likely gives you more for the same money.
- If you are shopping for a 250 plan: you are really shopping for upload. Compare 250/100 against 750/50 on total cost, not on the “250” in the name.
- If a comparison page shows a 250 plan from Telstra, Optus, or TPG: treat it as stale until the provider’s own page confirms it.
- Re-check before ordering: plan prices move often. Every price above was verified 13 October 2026 from the sources listed below.