Telstra to give free upgrades to all NBN25 customers

Jacqui Dent - Editorial Strategist

Last updated 01 March 2018

Telstra to give free upgrades to all NBN25 customers

All Telstra customers on the Standard NBN speed tier (NBN 25) will receive a free upgrade to NBN 50, according to an announcement made by the telco today. The upgrade will apply to 850,000 Telstra home and business customers. If that's you, then look forward to faster evening speeds, better capacity for Netflix and other high bandwidth-consumption activities like smart home, video-conferencing and large-file uploads.

Telstra's announcement comes in the wake of NBN Co's December decision to discount NBN 50, allowing telcos to sell the faster speed tier at NBN 25 prices. Since the December announcement, telcos including the TPG group, have axed NBN 25 from their plans altogether, while others choose to offer both speeds at the same price.

What does this mean if you're on NBN 25?

If you're a Telstra customer - congratulations, you're getting a free upgrade. It will happen automatically sometime over the next few months. You don't need to do anything. Telstra will inform you when it's happened.

If you're with another telco and you signed up for NBN 25 before December 2017, you may be paying the same price as new customers on NBN 50. Think about contacting your provider - they might offer you an upgrade.

Telstra has been the first telco to be proactive in upgrading its NBN 25 customers. It's a big commitment - the operation will be large and resource-intensive, occurring over the next several months.

Smart modem

As well as the upgrade, Telstra will be giving a free Smart Modem to all new customers signing up to a home internet bundle, all customers moving home and the majority of customers moving to the NBN.

The smart modem is installed with a 4G mobile back-up SIM, which provides mobile internet during times of outage. Vodafone's WiFi Hub, released in August 2017, works in much the same way.

The Smart Modem and WiFi Hub address a significant pain point for customers switching over to the NBN, who can be left without internet at home for two to four days, sometimes more. The Smart Modem also provides a solution for customers who might experience a connection gap while moving house, and acts as a back-up during unexpected service outages.

Internet speeds on Telstra's Smart Modem's 4G back-up SIM are limited to 6/1Mbps, while Vodafone's WiFi Hub's 4G speeds are capped at 12Mbps.

Jacqui Dent

Editorial Strategist

Jacqui Dent is an Editorial Content Strategist at WhistleOut Australia, where she writes about mobile phone plans, NBN plans and everything in between. Over her ten-year career, she has worked to provide informed advice to the public, first in the sphere of writing and now in the world of consumer tech. Jacqui has also written about consumer telco products for Business Insider, Pedestrian and the 50Up Club.

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