Check your connection with our NBN speed test

How to use the NBN speed test tool

1. 1

   Connect to your home internet

   Make sure the device you are testing on is using your NBN connection, not mobile data.

2. 2

   Press Go

   It takes under a minute. Leave the page open while it runs.

3. 3

   Read the three numbers

   Download speed, upload speed and ping. The sections below explain each one and what a good result looks like.

What the three numbers mean

1. Download speed. How quickly data comes from the internet to your device, in megabits per second (Mbps). It decides how well pages load, video streams and files download. On most plans this is the number the plan is named after.
2. Upload speed. How quickly data goes from your device to the internet. It matters for video calls, sending large files and backing up photos. If you work from home, this one matters more than most people expect.
3. Ping. Also called latency. The time, in milliseconds, for a signal to go from your device to a server and back. Lower is better. It matters for anything live: video calls and online games.

What a good result looks like

A good result is one that is close to what you are paying for. Every NBN plan is sold on a speed tier. On the everyday tiers the name is still the top download speed: an NBN 50 plan is up to 50 Mbps. On the faster tiers it no longer is. Since 14 September 2025, on fibre to the premises and HFC, an NBN 100 plan can run at up to 500 Mbps and an NBN 250 plan at up to 750 Mbps; the speed tiers below set out each one. Your provider also publishes a typical evening speed for each plan, which is what you can expect at the busiest time of day. That published figure, for your plan, is what to compare your result against. If yours is well below it on a cable at the modem, have an internet technician find out why.

As for how much speed a household needs, this is a rough guide. It is a starting point, not a measurement.

A rough guide to how much download speed a household needs

Household	What it is doing	Download speed to aim for
One or two people	Browsing, email, streaming on one screen	About 25 Mbps
Three or four people	Streaming on a couple of screens, video calls, some gaming	About 50 Mbps
A busy home	Several streams, working from home, gaming, large downloads	100 Mbps or more

For ping, anything under 100 milliseconds is fine for browsing and streaming. For video calls and online games you want it lower, and under about 50 milliseconds is comfortable.

Two things to keep in mind. Speed is shared, so four people streaming at once need roughly four times what one person does. And a faster plan does not fix poor WiFi: if the cable result at the modem is good and the back bedroom is slow, more speed from your provider will not reach the back bedroom either. That is a WiFi problem, fixed inside the home.

How to get an accurate speed test reading

One test on a phone at the far end of the house tells you very little. To find out what your connection is really doing:

1. Plug in with a cable. Connect a computer to the modem with a network cable and turn its WiFi off. A cable result is the truest measure of the service coming into the house.
2. Quieten the network. Pause downloads and streaming on other devices, and close apps on the one you are testing with.
3. Test at different times. Evenings, roughly 7 pm to 11 pm, are the busiest. Test then, and test again in the morning, so you see the range.
4. Test more than once. A single result can be a fluke. Three or four tests over a few days show the pattern.
5. Then test on WiFi. Run it again on WiFi beside the modem, and again in the room that feels slow.

If the router itself is in doubt, take it out of the test: plug the computer straight into the NBN box with the network cable and run the test again. This video shows how, on each type of NBN connection. If the computer gets nothing at the box at all, that alone does not mean an NBN fault. The box can stay locked to the router that was plugged in before until your provider clears the old session, which some providers, Aussie Broadband for one, let you do in their app, and some providers need a login (PPPoE) for the connection that a computer on its own has not got.

Watch: Can You Connect Your Computer Directly to the NBN Box? (YES—Here’s How & Why You Should!)

Video · 7 min (opens in a new tab)

What affects your speed test results

• The device. An older phone or laptop may not be able to go as fast as your plan. Test on your newest device, and keep it updated. Fast on the phone and slow on the laptop means the laptop: how to tell the computer from the connection.
• The modem or router. An old router can hold back a fast plan. So can an older network cable between the NBN box and the router.
• WiFi. Distance, walls and interference all cut speed. This is the most common reason a result looks poor. If a device shows full WiFi and loads nothing at all, that is a different problem: WiFi connected without internet.
• Time of day. In the evening everyone in your area is online at once, and speeds dip. How much they dip differs between providers. Why your NBN is slow goes through the evening dip and the other usual causes.
• Your type of NBN. Fibre to the premises and HFC can carry the fastest plans. On the types that still use the copper phone line, which are fibre to the node, fibre to the curb and fibre to the building, the speed you can get depends on the length and condition of that copper, including the wiring inside your home.
• A fault. A line that is noisy, a corroded joint or old phone sockets still connected to the line will pull the speed down, and often make it worse in wet weather. That kind of fault is found and fixed on site, not over the phone.

What to do if your speed does not match your NBN plan

1. 1

   Gather your results

   Test on a cable at the modem, several times, at different times of day. Write down the date, the time and the three numbers each time.

2. 2

   Contact your provider

   Give them the results and ask them to investigate. Ask them to run a line test and tell you what it shows. Write down the reference number.

3. 3

   Follow their troubleshooting

   They may ask you to restart equipment or test again in a particular way. Do it, and note the results.

4. 4

   Escalate if it does not get fixed

   Ask for the complaint to be escalated within your provider. If that goes nowhere, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman takes complaints, and your written record is what they will ask for.

5. 5

   Consider a different provider or plan

   If the service is sound and simply too slow for the household, a higher tier or a provider with better evening speeds may be the answer.

If your provider tells you the problem is the wiring inside your home, that can be tested: an independent NBN technician tests your side of the line. It does not have to be taken on trust, in either direction.

Log each result in our fault log, with the time and whether you were on a cable, so your provider sees the whole picture.

NBN speed tiers and which one suits you

NBN plans come in speed tiers, from basic plans for light use up to very fast plans for homes on fibre to the premises or HFC. Until 14 September 2025 a tier’s number was its maximum download speed. On fibre to the premises and HFC it no longer is: nbn lifted Home Fast (NBN 100) to up to 500 Mbps and Home Superfast (NBN 250) to up to 750 Mbps, doubled the upload on Home Ultrafast, and added a 2,000 Mbps tier. Fibre to the node, fibre to the curb and fibre to the building were not boosted. The tiers on offer, and what each provider calls them, still change from time to time, so check your provider’s current list as well.

nbn’s faster tiers, then and now

Until 14 September 2025Now

1. Home FastNBN 100 · Was 100 Mbps 500 Mbps
2. Home SuperfastNBN 250 · Was 250 Mbps 750 Mbps
3. Home UltrafastNBN 1000 · Upload doubled ~1,000 Mbps
4. Home HyperfastNBN 2000 · New tier 2,000 Mbps

Fibre to the node, fibre to the curb and fibre to the building were not boosted. On those, the line is the limit, and upgrading to fibre to the premises is what lifts it. How the free FTTP upgrade works.

nbn’s wholesale speed tiers, in Mbps, before and after 14 September 2025

Tier	Sold as	Download before	Download now	Upload now
Home Fast	NBN 100	100	500	50
Home Superfast	NBN 250	250	750	50
Home Ultrafast	NBN 1000	~1,000	~1,000	~100
Home Hyperfast	NBN 2000	New	2,000	200 (100 on HFC)

Source: nbn (opens in a new tab) for the speeds, Optus (opens in a new tab) for the types not boosted, checked 17 October 2026.

For a fuller answer, what NBN speed you need goes through each household and what caps the speed inside the house.

To choose one:

1. Count the people and devices that are online at the same time, in the evening.
2. Think about what they do. Streaming and video calls need steady speed. Gaming needs low ping more than it needs speed.
3. Compare typical evening speeds between providers, not just the tier name.
4. Check what your address can actually get. On a copper-based connection, the line may not reach the top of a faster tier, and paying for it will not change that.

Simple steps to improve your home internet speed

1. Restart the modem. Unplug it for 30 seconds and plug it back in.
2. Use a cable for the things that matter. A work computer, a smart TV or a games console on a cable is faster and steadier than on WiFi.
3. Move the modem into the open. Central, up high, and not in a cupboard.
4. Check your devices. Run updates, and scan for malware on a computer that has become slow on its own.
5. Ease the load at busy times. Pause big downloads and backups in the evening.
6. Then look at the plan. If the cable result matches your plan and it is still not enough, the plan is too small for the household.

If the dropouts or slow speeds come and go, a log is the most useful thing you can make, and why an internet connection turns unstable explains what the pattern points to. A tool such as PingPlotter, left running, records every dropout with a time against it, which is far harder for anyone to wave away than “it was slow last night”.