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News The Most Important Speed on Your NBN Plan: Evening Speed
The Most Important Speed on Your NBN Plan: Evening Speed

The Most Important Speed on Your NBN Plan: Evening Speed

Tags: Telco & Broadband
Last updated by Jacqui Dent on

If you’re shopping for an NBN plan, you might have noticed that providers have started talking about ‘evening speeds’. Great, as if choosing an NBN plan wasn’t hard enough already, right? Fortunately, NBN evening speeds aren’t nearly as confusing as they might sound, and they might just be the most important thing to look at when choosing your plan.

What are NBN evening speeds?

Much in the same way that traffic on the road can slow down during peak hours, the NBN can too. And for pretty much the same reason. NBN connections tend to slow down between 7pm - 11pm, when everyone in the neighbourhood is jumping online to stream, surf, download, and more.

The good news is, this kind of congestion is something providers can monitor and keep under control. And now that many providers advertise the typical evening speeds their customers can expect, we can compare them and find out who is likely to give you the best NBN experience during the hours you’ll want to use it most.

The providers with the fastest NBN evening speeds

Which provider is the fastest varies a little across NBN speed categories, so we’ll go through them across the two speed tiers we recommend the most: Standard and Standard Plus. It’s also important to note that not every NBN provider chooses to advertise typical NBN evening speeds. In this guide, we’ll only be able to compare those that do.

NBN Standard Speed (NBN 25) Plans

These plans are best suited for one or two person households. The maximum speed a provider can achieve on this connection is 25Mbps. The top 5 fastest for evening speed with plans in this category typically achieve the following speeds between 7pm - 11pm1:

Dodo - 24Mbps
Telstra - 23.34Mbps
Aussie Broadband - 23Mbps
Exetel - 23Mbps
Tangerine Telecom - 21Mbps

NBN Standard Plus (NBN 50) Plans

These plans are best suited to two to four person households. The maximum speed a provider can achieve on this connection is 50Mbps. The top 5 fastest for evening speed in this category typically achieve the following speeds between 7pm - 11pm1:

Dodo - 47Mbps
iPrimus - 47Mbps
Telstra - 46.29Mbps
More Telecom - 46Mbps
Southern Phone - 46Mbps

1To collect this information we used both ‘typical evening speeds’ advertised by carriers as well as the results of carrier evening speed tests conducted across their networks where available.

Jacqui Dent is associate editor at WhistleOut, Australia's largest mobile phone and internet comparison site. As a result of services provided by us, WhistleOut Pty Ltd may pay

The FiftyUp Club a portion of any fee of that they receive from their providers. These fees may be based on either referrals to third parties or on application or approval for products from third party providers.

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Aidan
Aidan from WA commented:

Important issues are not just limited to speeds and data allowances. How does a provider rate when you have a problem or need advice. AussieBroadband have great service support both in terms of capability and in willingness to assist . People should research (try using Whirlpool.com) to find out how a company rates in Support and in Billing too, 

Someone
Someone from VIC commented:

Interested to know how many RSPs were researched? There are over 100 available on the NBN. AussieBroadband are one of the only ones who publicly publish how much bandwidth they have in each location, many of the others are too embarrassed to publish this information. 

Glenn
Glenn from NSW commented:

What about Optus ? Kind regards, Glenn 

Christopher
Christopher from QLD commented:

Thanks Mark, your comments make it more understandable. It's like Health Plans, they are even more confusing. The problem with all of these is trying to compare. Our Health fund covers us for pregnancy which at our age is not an issue but we cannot have it removed. It would be good if you could get a quote by giving them the only things you want and saying give me a price. My understanding is that there is legislation going through that will stipulate that they all have a similar way of offering what they have to make it easier for us to choose. 

Paul
Paul from NSW commented:

Perhaps you should have included in your story that the speeds shown are only applicable when the NBN is delivered to the PC etc when the PC is plugged in by cable to the modem. Speed can be much lower if the signal from the modem is by WiFi. Paul, NSW 

Jay
Jay from WA replied to Paul:

Or if using a range extender, you will still only get the speed of the slowest wifi/access point in the series. If set on using wifi, it's always better running cable to each location you require wifi and installing a separate wifi device (access point not another modem/router) in that area. 

Jay
Jay from WA commented:

My current ADSL2+ (Broadband) service is throttled so - 3mb is shared between 2 Xboxes (xbox games, Netflix, etc), 2mb is allocated to Telstra TV (if we watch a movie we need to wait 10 min before use - once per month), 4mb is shared between all computers, and mobile devices for general internet browsing, school study, work, etc. In summary 25mb is much more than most households require if you are smart about its use. There is no such thing as Internet Speed. The speed is all the same, its just the size of the pipe that changes. 

Brian
Brian from VIC commented:

I don't have NBN yet so tether my computer to my phone. 4G is not bad for what I do. I've been told that 5G mobile will make the NBN obsolete, I'll wait to see. 

Christopher
Christopher from QLD commented:

I am so confused with this technology and the plans on offer. 

ian
ian from NSW replied to Christopher:

your confused ? god help me. Ian nsw 

Mark
Mark from NSW replied to Christopher:

Think if the internet speed the same as kmh in a car. The NBN has three speeds 25mbps, 50 mbps and 100mbps. Just a car on the road 25kph, 50kph and 100kph. At peak times, companies can not maintain these speeds. The speeds they delivery during peak are the numbers listed as typical. Bye thw way TPG was rated very high. With the best evening speeds with tge 100mbps plan. 

Someone
Someone from QLD replied to Christopher:

So am I Christopher, so am I. I am frightened that I might get the wrong thing, or be locked into something that is not what I want. I am happy with what I have now ... NO NBN. 

Someone
Someone from VIC commented:

What about TGP Braodband ?? 

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