The NBN will be getting faster and slightly cheaper following a five month wholesale pricing review with retail service providers (RSPs) and industry groups.
It’s not unusual to see the NBN come under fire for either connection and reliability issues or pricing but these changes will be a breath of fresh air for customers.
We’re getting close to the NBN completion – the rollout is on track to be completed in 2020.
This latest review has outlined a roadmap which will see customers able to access speeds truer to what they are paying for, wholesale discounts which will be passed on to the customer over the next two years and a plan to launch even faster speeds in 2020.
“Retailers strongly advocated for greater certainty on future wholesale prices, more included data capacity and better value for money. We’ve listened and this is exactly what we’re announcing today,” says Brad Whitcomb, NBN chief customer officer.
“Across most of our discount bundles we’re introducing significant improvements, which will allow RSPs to provide their customers with greater choice and even more affordable retail broadband products.”
The NBN will also make price adjustments to entry level bundles to ensure service remains affordable for price-sensitive customers.
Another big change will be the national pooling of CVC (Connectivity Virtual Circuit) which is basically the traffic cop of the NBN.
At the moment the CVC operates locally within geographical areas close to POI (points of interconnection) but from May 2020, CVC will extend this pooling mechanism to a national level across RSPs.
This will make it more cost effective for RSPs to purchase capacity which will flow on to customer in the form of savings as well as providing more consistent and reliable speeds.
Here are the NBN high speed bundle changes we will see in 2020:
– There will be a new 100/20 (100Mbps download, 20Mbps upload) bundle which will have a wholesale $7 discount over the $65 100/40 bundle. The NBN will launch a new campaign called “Hot 100” which will offer the 100/40 bundle at the price of the 100/20 plan until it is launched in May 2020.
– NBN will introduce a 250/25 bundle discount making it $32 cheaper than the 250/100 bundle. It will also increase CVC capacity for this bundle in May 2021.
– For those craving super-fast speeds, the 1000/50 bundle will be $100 cheaper than the $180 charge for the 1000/400 bundle.
For mid-speed tiers, NBN will reduce the 25Mbps bundle price from $45 to $37 from December 6, 2019 with CVC allocation improving in May 2021.
The 50Mbps bundle will be offered at the same price but the CVC allocation will be boosted from May 2020.
“We strongly believe this rolling two-year roadmap, which will be updated annually as part of our yearly review of our discount bundles, will go a long way to improving transparency and certainty for RSPs,” Whitcomb says.
“The increased value and data capacity inclusions are a minimum guaranteed baseline and we will be flexible on any unexpected shifts in the market to support the industry and customers.”
