The National Broadband Network (NBN) promises faster data speeds, but if you’ve been enjoying an “unlimited” plan on ADSL you haven’t been awash with options to match that on the NBN. AusBBS has introduced a range of unlimited NBN plans, which are the first we’ve seen in the local market, but you will pay extra for the privilege.
Infinity image from Shutterstock
As we noted in our NBN Planhacker roundup, unlimited hasn’t generally been an option for NBN consumer connections. TPG promised it would introduce one back in September last year, but that hasn’t happened yet. Given that providers still ultimately have to pay for bandwidth used, and that the NBN makes it easier to use much larger volumes, it’s not altogether surprising. Whatever the product, companies offering “unlimited” deals are essentially gambling that most customers won’t use anywhere near the maximum potential volume (and there’s invariably an “acceptable use” clause to cut out those who do).
AusBBS has already shown itself willing to experiment with pricing models, having introduced a pay-as-you-go approach. We didn’t think the original pricing there was particularly good value, and it has since been adjusted.
Unlimited represents a different kind of appeal to cost-conscious customers: rather than only paying for what you use, you pay one sum and use as much as you want. Note there’s an acceptable usage policy included, so if you go massively over average usage, you might find your deal canned — standard practice for “unlimited” deals.
The plans on offer cost $90 a month for a 25Mbps downloads/5Mbps upload connection, $100 a month for 50/20, or $110 for 100/40. (That looks like decoy pricing to us, since most people would be tempted to spend the extra $10 a month to double their speed.)
You don’t have to sign up to a 24-month contract, though doing so eliminates the setup fee ($55 for a 12-month contract or $99 for casual usage). We’d advise against a 24-month contract whenever possible.
While not experiencing bill shock is tempting, $90 a month is definitely at the pricey end of the market for a 25/5 connection. It’s much better value than some providers: Telstra, for instance, charges $80 a month for a measly 5GB download allowance, which makes AusBBS look good. On the other hand, Exetel charges $64.50 for 150GB of peak data and unlimited off peak — a cheaper deal, especially if you are scheduling downloads during off-peak times. As usual, our advice is to assess your own needs carefully: unlimited only makes sense if you use a lot of data.
Comments
10 responses to “AusBBS Has Australia’s First Unlimited NBN Plan”
Construction begins in my area in September so hopefully within the next two years they’ll be offering unlimited gigabit plans 🙂
In terms of service, are we right to assume we’d get the same speed etc regardless of who we go with (at a given address)? Given that the network is the same for everyone?
Surprising. I’m paying that for a 2.3 (3 theoretical)/.4. I wouldn’t consider 90 pricey if I had the NBN.
I think you’re talking MBps, not Mbps? Which’d be about the same? Telstra’s top tier cable plan (24Mbps) has 500GB (pretty much unlimited) and that’s $100. Deduct Telstra tax and $90 sounds on the high end, maybe
No I meant Mbps, as in megabits per second. The best connection I get is 2.3 Mbps, with Optus on 500GB. It’s unfortunately the best connection we get thanks to copper and our distance to the exchange(even though we’re barely 10 mins out of Melbourne CBD).
Ignore the above/below comment (pending moderation) missed the fine print, it’s 100Mbps for Telstra’s top tier one
Great looking plans but sadly 80 percent of Aussie will miss out on this plan thanks to the future lib government nerfing our upload speeds.
Bear in mind that regardless of whay About says or plans, NBN Co is a normal business who just signed a crap tonne of contracts. So thankfully we should continue to get a good chunk of it.
This isnt too bad. I’m payin $110 (discounted) bundle for Telstra 500GB Ultimate Cable 100Mbps + homephone. By the time my plan finishes hopefully the construction for NBN will be done.
Welcome to Australia… A place where you can not use google drive, Apple TV or cloud backups because you have limits on the volume of data… When will that end?
Unlimited sounds fine in theory but any user that averages over 5mbit on those plans is going to be costing them money (CVC is $20/mbit or at least it was). And that’s before the port charge (and possibly before other backhaul costs).
Basically they can’t supply unlimited, only 1643GB/month (for just CVC) at those prices after contention is taken into account.
They’re rolling cable 2 doors down from my house as of Friday.
I’ve just started shopping for a new plan.
Hopefully I can find a 200 gig plan which will roll over to 1Gbps in November when it becomes available.
Inaccurate topic considering Pennytel have had unlimited NBN (albeit in weird “daily pricing” structure
I also have to wonder how they intend to cope with people like me, at the moment I average 12-14TB/month across two ADSL2+ connections, I could quite easily see me being able to do a hell of a lot more