Aussie Broadband review: Value-packed NBN plans

Aussie Broadband currently offer a total of seven different NBN plans that vary in speed, features and monthly data. Prices go from $59 per month to as high as $149 per month.

In contrast to other NBN providers, Aussie also offers consumers the ability to  "Build Your Own" NBN plan by mixing and matching the inclusions they want to fit their budget. A shortlist of Aussie Broadband NBN plans ordered from cheapest to most expensive can be found below.

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

In our NBN provider analysis, Aussie Broadband scored a respectable 4-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 all 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 its higher price worth every cent.

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.

Keen to know how Aussie Broadband's NBN plans stack up against the competition? Here are the prices and inclusions for today's most popular plans.

Anyway, back to Aussie Broadband. If you're looking to save even more cash money on your monthly internet bill, you can opt for a Build Your Own plan; limiting yourself to 100GB or 500GB for a discount on your bill. Here are a couple of those capped plans, so you get an idea of how much you save.

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.

• 4.2-star average user rating
• Plenty of ways to get in touch

You probably already know about Aussie Broadband's near-spotless reputation with its customers. Its 4.2-star average across Australia's various user review platforms is an impressive feat, but there's more to Aussie's success than friendly customer service. In both the convoluted NBN market and the mobile provider arena, Aussie is a shining beacon of transparency and honesty.

It's 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.

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.

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.

Not quite, but the equally ocker MATE NBN offers a fair suck of the sauce bottle to its customers. MATE maintains a 4.4 star average across Australia user review platforms for its NBN efforts.

Aussie Broadband's NBN coverage is dependent on the NBN rollout around the country, which when completed should reach around 93% of the population.

• Fetch Mini and Fetch Mighty TV bundles
• No freebies

There are definitely "perks" to being an Aussie Broadband internet customer, the unrivalled customer service, the flexible month-to-month arrangements, 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.

For an extra $10 per month on the above NBN plans, you can bundle a Fetch Mini 4K streaming box, and if you're looking for a multi-room setup, you can bundle both a Fetch Mini and a Fetch Mighty (4K) set-top box for an extra $25 per month on Aussie's NBN 100 plan.

It's worth noting that 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.

Some providers also offer home wireless internet plans (ie, 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 $15 per month for 5GB of data to $65 per month for 120GB of data.

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

Aussie Broadband internet offers a Netcomm NF18MESH 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 $149 plus postage. This modem includes 4x Ethernet ports and dual-band AC WiFi for fast wireless browsing across the house. Need more coverage? The ISP also offers Google's Nest WiFi system from $249.

It’s also 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.