Fast speeds at home with Telstra nbn and 5G

Having a fast, secure, and reliable internet connection has never been more important. Millions of Aussies are now working, learning, and being entertained from home.
Michele Garra · 29 September 2020 · 7 minute read
A young mother works from home on a laptop while her child sits alongside her.

Having a faster connection means less buffering and higher quality video calls, even when several household members are using the internet at the same time. Today, we’re announcing faster typical busy period download speeds on our current plans, new high speed nbn™ offerings and a brand-new way to connect to the internet at home thanks to 5G.

The next generation of home internet with 5G

Connecting to the internet at home has typically been a wired affair. With our 5G network – built for speed and already available in over 1000 suburbs and 53 cities and towns around the nation – we now have another way of delivering fast and reliable internet to your home.

Tomorrow, we’re launching Telstra 5G Home Internet.

We’ll start by offering a $85 per month plan that includes a $0 5G modem, 500GB of data and the first month on us for eligible customers. We expect customers to achieve typical download speeds between 50Mbps and 300Mbps.

This will be a targeted, invitation-only launch at first to eligible customers to ensure we have the right service available for those who need it, but over the next 12 months, we’ll be scaling up so more people can get in on the action, especially as 5G continues to evolve and when mmWave is available.

Our starting principle is to offer the right internet connection to deliver the best experience for our customers based on their data needs, location, and what technology is available. In that spirit, we’ve also been working to improve our peak evening nbn speeds and the plans on offer too.

Boosting our nbn speeds for better performance

We know that not all nbn providers are created equal, despite what you might hear from others – and we’ve already seen the difference our customers experience on the nbn in the real world. We’ve ranked at the top of the Netflix ISP Speed Index for two years straight. Today, we’re announcing a range of exciting new plans and improvements to help ensure our customers have a fast and reliable home internet experience.

Until now, we’ve offered a set of fixed internet plans, with nbn Standard (nbn 25), Standard Plus (nbn 50) and Premium (nbn 100) plans available depending on your connection type and location.

Sometimes you want or need more speed, though – maybe you’re in a house where three or four people are working and/or studying from home, or maybe you just want to download games in your Xbox All Access subscription even quicker. If you want faster speeds, we want to give them to you.

That’s why we’re introducing Superfast and Ultrafast add-ons for our nbn™ 100 Premium Internet customers on eligible technology types. These add-ons are a huge leap over the fastest plans we’ve offered before – a big video game download can happen in an hour rather than hours, all while someone else in your house is watching Netflix on their phone, while someone else is on FaceTime in the other room, and someone else is fighting away in-game on the couch. These speeds are so fast that some less powerful Wi-Fi routers can’t keep up; our Smart Modem and Smart Wi-Fi Booster will be up to the task, though.

If you’re on our nbn™ 100 Premium Internet plan and on a compatible nbn technology type, you’ll now be able to add on Superfast or Ultrafast speeds to your monthly bill. The Superfast add-on has a typical evening download speed (between 7pm – 11pm) of 215Mbps, for $30 per month in addition to the cost of your Premium Internet plan (min cost is $3,459 with the Premium Internet plan when you stay connected for 24 months). Ultrafast takes it to an entirely new level, as we’re launching with a typical evening download speed (between 7pm – 11pm) of 250Mbps, for $70 per month in addition to the cost of your Premium Internet plan, until we have enough data to provide a reliable, higher, speed claim (min cost is $4,419 with the Premium Internet plan when you stay connected for 24 months).

Your home internet will need to be connected to the nbn with FTTP or HFC technology to access these add-ons. Most HFC and FTTP connections are capable of Superfast speeds, while only FTTP and some HFC customers can achieve Ultrafast speeds – we’ll only offer you these upgrades if your connection can take advantage of them.

We’ve also done a lot of work on our consumer and small businesses plans to make our internet speeds even faster. We recently boosted nbn download speeds by up to 15% for our nbn customers whose connection is capable of achieving these speeds at no extra cost, and we currently have nbn plans with the fastest advertised speeds in market.

To deliver these speeds to your devices, we know how important getting strong Wi-Fi around the house can be, which is why we continue to improve our Smart Modem Gen 2, with its strong Wi-Fi capabilities and 4G backup in case there is an outage, for more reliable connectivity. For the best experience, consider our Wi-Fi guarantee where we will ensure you get consistent wall to wall Wi-Fi coverage in every room of your home, or your money back.

Bringing nbn 100 plans back to more customers

We’ve also resumed selling nbn 100 plans for FTTC customers and selected existing Telstra nbn customers on FTTN and FTTB. Since we paused selling these plans earlier in the year, we’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure customers have a better experience with us when purchasing this plan.

We’ve upgraded our systems and set up processes that put customers first, and we’re now confident we can provide a better all-round experience for Aussies. If a customer on FTTN, FTTB or FTTC can’t reach the maximum speeds of the Premium Internet plan or Premium Add-on, we’ll let them know and provide them with options in accordance with our regulatory commitments.

The ways we use technology to entertain, work, study, and live continue to evolve, and we’ll evolve our offers to match so our customers get the right internet connectivity products to truly fit their needs now and into the future.

Things you need to know

Excludes nbn Fixed Wireless. nbn not available to all areas or premises. Typical evening speed is a measure of network speed to customer premises not a customer’s received in-home experience. Superfast and Ultrafast Add-ons are for ordinary/personal domestic use. Find out more about speeds on the nbn network with Telstra at Telstra/com/nbn-speeds. nbn™, nbn co and other nbn™ logos are trade marks of nbn co limited and user under licence.

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By Michele Garra

Connected Home & Business Executive

Michele is a senior executive with 25 years’ experience in the content industry, across strategic and commercial roles in Australia, Asia and the United States. She is a senior marketing leader with experience launching new, high definition and digital home technology platforms. Her career spans a variety of content, sales, marketing and product organisations including Virgin Australia, Microsoft and Sony Pictures. Prior to Telstra, Michele was Vice President Retail at Optus Telecommunications (SingTel), accountable for more than $2.9 billion revenue and the telco’s primary channels to market, including 370 branded stores. Michele joined Telstra in 2016, leading the Media division – launched the Telstra TV and revamped the AFL, NRL and netball sports apps. Then moved into Innovation and Strategy, developing the 5G Launch strategy and led the strategy redesign for the Consumer & Small Business unit. Michele now heads up the Connected Home & Business unit, including all broadband, voice and connected home and business services for consumer and small business customers.

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