Buddy Telco, the budget-focused offshoot from Aussie Broadband, burst onto the NBN scene last month and appears to already be finding favour with customers – and it could even have a claim to offer some of the best NBN plans. Aussie Broadband’s network is well-regarded in Australia for its speed and reliability and since Buddy Telco uses the same network but costs significantly less, what’s not to like?
The main caveat to Buddy Telco is that it’s intended for users who are at least a little tech savvy. Signing up and managing your account must be done via the website or phone app, and customer support goes through an AI chatbot. It’s only if you have serious issues that you’ll be transferred to a human.
While Buddy Telco’s NBN plans are all more affordable than Aussie Broadband's, its NBN 1000 plan is particularly noteworthy as it's the cheapest of its type currently on offer. What makes this plan potentially even more attractive is that customers who've signed up have been reporting similar speed results to the 'full-fat' Aussie Broadband service – and those speeds are far greater than the 600Mbps typical evening speeds that Buddy advertises.
Buddy Telco | NBN 1000 | AU$89p/m (first 3 months, then AU$99p/m)
Buddy Telco’s NBN 1000 only offers an introductory discount for the first 3 months, as opposed to the more common 6 months from other carriers, but even at full price, it’s AU$6p/m cheaper than the next nearest provider – and AU$30 cheaper than Aussie Broadband itself. Typical evening speeds are quoted as being 600Mbps, which is far from the fastest right now, but online reviews suggest real world speeds can be quite a bit faster.
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We’ve looked on forums including Whirlpool to find out what download speeds customers currently on an NBN 1000 plan with Aussie Broadband achieve, and many claim speeds of more than 900Mbps. One user has even made the switch from ABB to Buddy Telco and claimed they were still getting the same ~930Mbps download speeds they were used to.
It's worth noting that some users do add that the modem you use is important when you're on a gigabit service, and since Buddy Telco doesn’t provide any hardware, you may want to check out the best Wi-Fi routers to ensure you get the (literal) top speeds possible. It also appears that customers connected via fibre to the premises (FTTP) are the only ones able to achieve those 900Mbps+ speeds, with those on hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) maxing out at around 750Mbps.
For example, another Aussie Broadband customer who defected to Buddy says, “Evening during peak I am up at around 450-550Mbps down most of the time with the odd burst between 600-750 at times. I’m not expecting more than 750 though on HFC, given the way HFC was installed in my area.”
We should add that Aussie Broadband also advertises 600Mbps typical evening speeds and based on online forums, customers can also expect to achieve more than this. Aussie Broadband also has the added benefit of telephone customer support and the option to buy a router, if those are important factors for you.
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If you can make do without these extras, however, then Buddy Telco could be your new best friend.
Max Langridge
Staff Writer
Max is a senior staff writer for TechRadar who covers home entertainment and audio first, NBN second and virtually anything else that falls under the consumer electronics umbrella third. He's also a bit of an ecommerce fiend, particularly when it comes to finding the latest coupon codes for a variety of retailers. Hailing from the United Kingdom, Max spent a combined five years writing for What Hi-Fi? and Pocket-lint, before moving to Australia in 2018. After a brief stint writing for men’s lifestyle publications, Max is back to working on his first passion of technology.
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