If you signed up for an NBN 100 plan a couple of years ago and haven’t looked at it since, there’s a good chance your connection is now five times faster than the name on your bill suggests — and you may never have been told. In September 2025, NBN Co rolled out its biggest wholesale speed shake-up yet, and the old tier names most Australians still shop by no longer mean what they used to.
Here’s what the speed tiers actually are in 2026, what you genuinely need, and how to stop paying for speed you’ll never use.
What changed: the 2025 speed boost
Under NBN Co’s “Accelerate Great” program, which took effect in September 2025, the three fastest wholesale tiers for fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) connections were transformed:
- Old NBN 100 (100/20 Mbps) → now 500/50 Mbps, sold by retailers as “Home Fast” or NBN 500
- Old NBN 250 (250/25 Mbps) → now 750/50 Mbps, sold as “Home Superfast” or NBN 750
- Old NBN 1000 (1000/50 Mbps) → now 1000/100 Mbps, sold as “Home Ultrafast” or NBN 1000
- New NBN 2000 tier — up to 2000 Mbps down, 100–200 Mbps up, for FTTP and newer HFC areas
Crucially, this happened with no increase in wholesale cost to retailers — so many providers simply migrated existing customers onto the faster tiers. If you’re on FTTP or HFC and paying for what your retailer still calls “NBN 100”, run a speed test tonight: you might be getting 400+ Mbps already.
The full tier list in 2026
Australia’s NBN now spans eight standard retail tiers. But not every tier is available at every address — your connection technology decides your ceiling:
- NBN 12 (12/1 Mbps) — email and light browsing only. Hard to justify in 2026.
- NBN 25 (25/5–10 Mbps) — suits one or two people; HD streaming on a couple of devices.
- NBN 50 (50/20 Mbps) — the sweet spot for most households: 2–4 people streaming, gaming, and working from home simultaneously. Typical evening speeds run 40–50 Mbps.
- NBN 100 (100/20–40 Mbps) — for larger households. Note: on FTTP/HFC this tier has effectively been replaced by 500 Mbps at similar prices.
- NBN 500 (500/50 Mbps) — FTTP/HFC only. Multiple 4K streams, big game downloads, and cloud backups running together. Typical evening speeds around 440–500 Mbps.
- NBN 750 (750/50 Mbps) — FTTP/HFC only. For heavy households that notice the difference.
- NBN 1000 (1000/100 Mbps) — FTTP/HFC only. Typical evening speeds 700–950 Mbps. Genuinely hard to saturate.
- NBN 2000 (2000/100–200 Mbps) — FTTP and newer HFC only. For creators, pros, and future-proofers.
Homes on FTTN (fibre to the node), FTTC, or FTTB are capped at NBN 100 regardless of what’s advertised — the copper in the ground is the limit, not your plan. NBN Co’s ongoing fibre upgrade program is progressively moving these addresses to full fibre, so it’s worth checking your address on NBN Co’s website once or twice a year.
What speed do you actually need?
The honest answer for most Australian households in 2026 is NBN 50. Here’s why: a 4K Netflix stream uses about 15 Mbps, a video call about 5–10 Mbps, and online gaming cares far more about latency (under 20ms on fixed-line NBN) than raw bandwidth. A family of four can stream, call, and game at once on 50 Mbps without anyone noticing.
Where faster tiers earn their money is downloads. A 100 GB game download — standard for modern PlayStation and Xbox titles — takes over two hours on NBN 100 but under half an hour on NBN 500. With Australian households now downloading an average of 423 GB a month, that difference is felt weekly in gaming and creative households.
Upload speed matters more than it used to: 20 Mbps up handles video calls and cloud photo backups fine, but if you livestream, upload large video files, or run a home office with heavy cloud sync, the 50–100 Mbps upload on the faster tiers is transformative.
What should you pay?
As a rough guide to 2026 retail pricing for unlimited-data plans: NBN 50 starts around $70–$90 a month, NBN 100 around $84–$97, NBN 500 around $80–$95 (often cheaper than NBN 100 was two years ago), and NBN 1000 around $102–$121. The odd pricing overlap between tiers is exactly why it pays to compare — some retailers still price legacy tier names as if the 2025 boost never happened.
Two rules before you sign anything:
- Look at the typical evening speed, not the headline number. Retailers must disclose the speeds you can expect between 7 and 11 pm in their Critical Information Summary. The ACCC’s independent Measuring Broadband Australia program published its final report in June 2026, so the retailer’s disclosed figure is now your best independent-ish benchmark.
- Check your technology type first. There’s no point paying for NBN 500 on an FTTN connection that physically tops out under 100 Mbps. Your current provider can tell you, or check NBN Co’s address lookup.
What about 5G home internet and fixed wireless?
5G home broadband (typically 300 Mbps down, ~20 Mbps up, from around $75 a month) is a genuine alternative if your NBN connection is FTTN and underwhelming — but watch the fine print on deprioritisation during congestion and higher latency for gaming. NBN Co is also introducing faster fixed wireless tiers reaching up to 325 Mbps for regional addresses, though rollout is still in planning.
Related guides
If you are weighing up your options, see our guides to Starlink in Australia, 5G home internet vs NBN, and how to get an NBN FTTP upgrade.
What this means for you
- On FTTP or HFC and haven’t checked since 2025? Run a speed test — you may already have 500 Mbps. If you’re still getting ~95 Mbps, call your provider and ask to be moved to the current equivalent tier; it often costs the same or less.
- Most households: NBN 50 remains the value king. Don’t let a salesperson upsell you to gigabit speeds you’ll never saturate.
- Gamers and creators: NBN 500 is the new sweet spot — dramatically faster downloads and 50 Mbps upload at prices that used to buy NBN 100.
- On FTTN/FTTC: your ceiling is NBN 100. Check whether your address is eligible for a free fibre upgrade before paying for anything faster.
- Always compare on typical evening speed, not the advertised maximum.
Prices and speeds described are based on publicly advertised retail plans as of October 2026 and change frequently — confirm the current offer with the provider before signing up.