Australia’s national broadband regulator has found that households with fibre to the node (FTTN) NBN connections are far more likely to experience persistently slow download speeds than users on other fixed‑line technologies.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s latest Measuring Broadband Australia report, which sampled services in May 2025, shows FTTN connections with plan download speeds of 50 or 100 Mbps made up 86 per cent of all underperforming fixed‑line services recorded that month. Underperforming services very rarely, if ever, achieve at least 75 per cent of their plan download speed, the report says.
Nearly all of those underperforming FTTN services were also classed as impaired, meaning the household cannot reach its plan download speed because the maximum attainable speed on the individual connection is below the plan level.
“We are concerned that there is a growing divide in the download speeds that Australians can access depending on their NBN connection type,” ACCC Commissioner Anna Brakey said.
“There remains a cohort of households with FTTN connections that rarely, if ever, achieve download speeds close to their plan’s download speed.”
The report put numbers to that divide. FTTN connections on 100 Mbps plans averaged 88.2 Mbps, compared with 104.4 Mbps on fibre to the premises (FTTP) and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) services on the same plan. For 50 Mbps plans, average download speeds were 47.6 Mbps on FTTN, versus 52.1 Mbps on FTTP and 52.3 Mbps on HFC. FTTN services on 25 Mbps plans generally delivered close to plan speeds, averaging 25.7 Mbps.
“Retailers must make customers aware if their NBN FTTN connection is not able to reach their chosen plan speed so that the customer can make an informed decision about which plan offers the best value for them,” Ms Brakey said.
The number of households on FTTN and fibre to the curb (FTTC) is falling as NBN Co upgrades connections. NBN is carrying out a program to transition all FTTC connections and 95 per cent of remaining FTTN premises to FTTP by 2030. The ACCC urged consumers who experience slow speeds or frequent outages on FTTN and FTTC to contact their retailer about eligibility for an upgrade or other options.
“We encourage consumers experiencing slow internet speeds or frequent outages on FTTN and FTTC connections to contact their broadband provider to see if they are eligible for a NBN connection upgrade, or what other options may be available,” Ms Brakey said.
The report also found that HFC connections were most prone to outages and were the most common connection type to record more than one outage per day on average.
Data for the Measuring Broadband Australia programme is provided by UK‑based firm SamKnows, using methodology based on speed‑testing programmes delivered in the UK, US, Canada and New Zealand. The report defines “Underperforming services” as those that reach above 75 per cent of plan speed in no more than 5 per cent of download tests. The report defines “Impaired services” as FTTN services where the maximum attainable download speed measured by NBN Co is below the plan download speed.
The ACCC noted that NBN services may exceed their wholesale plan speed because of overprovisioning — where NBN Co supplies a slightly higher data rate than the wholesale plan to allow for losses during data retrieval — and that NBN Co does not currently overprovision the uplink for fixed‑line services.
