Best 5G internet plans in Australia November 2024: Telstra, Optus, TPG and more compared

5G home internet is broadband that leverages 5G mobile networks maintained by Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. It’s the fastest mobile network band currently available in Australia and is being rolled out across the country – which is why it’s not available in a lot of places. It’s about 10 times as fast as 4G, making it far better suited for things like high quality streaming and faster file downloads.

It’s highly unlikely that 5G will 'replace' the NBN because, for the most part, they’re separate things altogether. The 5G networks operated by Australia’s three largest telcos don’t have anything to do with the NBN – and in regional Australia, where fixed wireless NBN is used where fibre lines cannot reach, a combination of 5G and 4G technologies are used to service homes with internet.

But for your household, it could be worthwhile switching to 5G if your NBN connection has been failing you or you want to try an NBN alternative. HFC and FTTP NBN plans are more likely to be consistent than 5G plans because of the technology connection to your premises. It relies on fixed-line technology, which provides lower latencies than what 5G could ever offer – even in the most optimal conditions. But if you live in a household or area with consistent NBN dropouts, outages and maintenances (say for example, a home serviced by FTTN or FTTC connections), 5G home internet can represent a worthwhile alternative. If you want to stick to a fixed-line connection, we suggest looking into the NBN’s free fibre upgrade program.

Australia’s three big telcos, Telstra, Optus and Vodafone, offer their own 5G home internet plans, but which smaller MVNOs have plans on offer?

Some top 5G home internet plans are available from Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, iiNet, Spintel, TPG and Yomojo. Plan speeds and prices can vary greatly between these providers. 5G coverage, even for mobile plans, is still not widely available across every telco in Australia, and 5G home internet plans are even more rare.

And this is pretty well summed up when you look at 5G coverage maps across Australia, including those from the telcos listed below:

• Telstra 5G coverage
• Optus 5G coverage
• Vodafone 5G coverage

5G home internet is here, with Telstra, Optus and TPG all now offering a 5G home internet option, along with a select few MVNOs. The major caveat, though, is that it’s only available in select areas.

As for availability, 5G coverage is available in all capital cities in Australia, though Darwin is only served by Vodafone’s 5G network at present. A number of regional centres across the country also have access to 5G coverage.

The initial rollout of 5G has been based on higher frequency bands, that deliver lots of capacity over short distances, which isn’t much use in rural areas where there are fewer people spread over much larger areas.

5G can be quite a lot faster than many broadband connections, though you should take any headline figures with a grain of salt. Quoted 5G speeds are theoretical, as you’ll know if you’ve ever struggled to do anything on a one-bar 4G connection. According to the small Australian telco Mate, which uses parts of the Telstra network, 4G is capable of download speeds up to 180Mbps. In reality, though, you’re more likely to achieve around 20Mbps.

For 5G, speeds are expected to be between 100Mbps and 1Gbps, according to WhistleOut. On Telstra’s 5G home internet sign up page, the telco reports download speeds between 50Mbps and 600Mbps. However, you should only expect to reach top speeds under ideal conditions, and that qualifier is important because mobile data speeds are affected by signal strength, interference and congestion.

But it’s not just about straight line speed. Latency matters too. Latency is the gap between asking for something and getting it: a song, perhaps, or throwing a grenade at someone in a game. The longer the lag the worse the performance. On 4G, latency hovers somewhere between 50 to 100 milliseconds; on 5G that can drop into single digits.

We have a dedicated guide on how to do an NBN speed test, which you can also use to test your 4G or 5G speed.