A money expert has slammed NBN Co’s proposal to turbocharge the three fastest speed tiers, calling it a ‘price rise in disguise’.
NBN plan to supercharge download speeds for customers connected via Fibre to the Premises or by cable TV-based Hybrid Fibre Coaxial connections.
The move will boost speeds from a maximum 100/20 Mbps to 500/50 Mbps on the NBN Home Fast plan, and triple download speeds on their Superfast plan to 750/50Mbps while the Ultrafast increases to 750-1000/50-100Mbps.
But the NBN’s cheapest plans will remain the same – and finance guru Joel Gibson warns that could see low-income households being left behind.
And up to 70 per cent of the country may need to pay more every month to access the higher speeds.
He said the new high-speed plans will only widen the gap between the haves and have-not who can’t afford ultra-fast internet.
A money expert has slammed NBN Co’s proposal to ‘turbo-charge’ the three fastest speed tiers, calling it a ‘price rise in disguise’
Mr Gibson said the massive speed boost will only benefit the 30 per cent of ns who pay over $100 a month for their NBN – and is designed to tempt them to upgrade and spend more.
‘[Most] ns are not on fast, superfast and ultrafast plans NBN plans,’ he said in a TikTok video in conjunction with WhistleOut comparison site.
’70 per cent are on standard or basic NBN plans, now they’re the ones that cost under $100.
‘I’ve been working with WhistleOut on this to try and raise some awareness about the fact that, at the moment, seven in 10 households are going to miss out.’
Mr Gibson claims the NBN is trying to push Aussies to upgrade their internet plans, but says ‘it’s just not fair’ to make people pay more in a cost-of-living crisis.
‘There’s been a $7 billion investment in fibre in the network by the federal government and by NBN Co in recent years,’ he said.
‘And what they now want is for people to make the most of that extra new infrastructure by upgrading to faster NBN plans
‘That’s all well and good, but not everyone can afford to pay over $100 a month for access to the internet.’
Mr Gibson says the NBN need to ‘read the room’.
‘If they can massively increase the maximum speed on a fast NBN plan, I’m sure they can do it on a standard NBN plan which is what the largest proportion of ns are currently on,’ he said.
‘We should all be getting faster speeds because the cost of providing that infrastructure is getting lower over time, we shouldn’t have to pay extra.’
The NBN told Daily Mail that they are planning to offer the three accelerated speed tiers at no extra wholesale cost, but retail prices were out of their control.
NBN Co told Daily Mail that they are planning to offer the three accelerated speed tiers at no extra wholesale cost, but were unable to provide any further information about whether retailers would raise the price of their plans
The NBN stressed there will be no changes to the price or speed of their lower tier plans.
‘This reflects our intent to maintain a diverse range of products at different price points to cater for different customer demands and budgets,’ said a spokesman.
‘Currently around 7,000 customers per week, on average, are placing fibre upgrade orders and as at 31 December 2023, almost 200,000 premises had upgraded to a full fibre service.’
NBN Co plan to deliver these accelerated services to customers by the end of the year.