Top 5 Broadband Plans for Families in Australia

Updated 24th January 2020

Just how much data does a family use? It’s a tricky question since no two families are exactly alike. Some use it just for email and checking the news. Other use it to work from home, and maybe stream a bit of TV. Sometimes, you need to upload and download massive files — for work-related tasks, personal hobbies, studying, and even just for fun. If you’ve got kids, there’s a good chance they like video games – which can be a huge data sucker. So in reality, it’s really a multi-part question.

What are the best Internet Plans for Families?

In this digital era, internet plans are as wide and varied as the cars on the road. In order to figure out which plan is most suitable for you and your family, you have to ask a few simple questions. How fast, how reliable, how much data? And how much are you willing to spend? Once you know the answer to these two questions, you can examine the most obvious question remaining, how much internet does the average family consume?

How much internet does the Average Family Use?

To get to grips with this question, I polled my married friends who had children, as their internet usage patterns differ greatly from my own. Here’s what I found out about how parents and children both use the internet, versus that of a whole family unit.

• Parent Internet Usage
• Children Internet Usage
• Family Internet Usage

How do Parents use the Internet?

Parents use broadband when dealing with a huge range of stuff. Work emails and teleconferences. Organising holidays. Researching kitchen appliances. Listening to podcasts. Gaming. Legitimate, legal file-sharing. Staying up to date on social media. Blogging. Reading other people’s blogs. The list is endless.

How do children use the Internet?

Children use the internet in just as many ways. Socialising, gaming, researching school projects. Uploading vlogs and organising weekend activities.

How does a Family use the Internet?

However, generally speaking, there is one large factor that both adults and children have in common. Families use the internet for entertainment, which means that both kids and parents are downloading and streaming TV shows and movies and music, and even Video Games.

How to pick the best internet plan for families?

Coming back to some of the questions we posed at the beginning of the article, there are five things that every family should consider when picking the right internet plan for their families needs. Speed, latency, reliability, data, and cost.

Speed

This is how fast the data moves to or from your modem. This is a big deal when you have a house full of people streaming, downloading and generally trying to get what they want now. A slow connection means people are going to complain.

Latency

Latency is the measure of how fast your ISP responds to a request. In a family situation, this matters when you are trying to entertain. No one wants to spend ages waiting for a menu to load – they want to watch Frozen on Netflix. Again. And again.

Reliability

With a house full of people streaming TV, chatting with friends or downloading work documents, the last thing you need is a dropped connection. As the person in charge of deciding which internet package to go with, you’re the one they look to – or blame – when things go wrong. So it pays to seek out a stable connection from the start. From experience, reliability ranks as following: 1) ADSL 2) Cable 3) NBN.

Data Limits

And a decent amount too! From my survey, the minimum amount used by a family of four was 120 GB a month. At the top end, it was more than ten times this amount! However, most families got by on an average of about 500 – and rarely went over. In most cases, going over your data limit gets your data connection “shaped”. This restricts speeds to 256kbps or less. And trust me – this is not fast enough for the whole family. Indeed, with unlimited plans more and more common, it’s a hard sell to sign up to a plan with a limit.

Cost

As recently as the early 2000s there were families paying $50 each month for 1 GB of dial-up internet. Why? Because they didn’t know better. Naturally, you want to provide your family the best broadband deal you can – without breaking the bank. So the price of your broadband package should be kept to a reasonable level for what you’re watching

The Top Five Broadband Deals For Families

As outlined above, we’re looking at fast, stable connections that feature 500GB or more per month. We want decent latency. And we want it at a decent price – meaning bundles are okay! Right now, we’ll leave 4G and Wireless options alone – I want to focus on in-house installations from providers such as Southern Phone and Telstra.

• Telstra
• Southern Phone
• Belong
• MyRepublic
• activ8me

#1 Telstra NBN Entertainment Bundle with 1st Month Free

Telstra has long been a staple for many families in the telecommunications market. And now when it comes to choosing broadband for the household, Telstra Broadband offers a very tempting bundle. For only $99 per month — with the first month completely free of charge — you get the new Telstra TV, a home phone connection with included unlimited local, national, and mobile calls and are hooked into the NBN with unlimited data each month on the 50/20 speed tier. Even more ideal for families is Telstra’s free Broadband Protect included on all internet plans. It’s automatically activated for Telstra Home Internet. With this, parents can setup parental controls and Anti-Virus Plus Security. For greater value, all broadband plans also include a free $99 connection fee when you sign up online. Families can also count on Telstra to improve their streaming experience — as of December 2019, the telco is Australia’s #1 NBN provider for streaming Netflix.

#2 Southern Phone Turbo Speed Plan

For big families, Southern Phone has you covered with their super-fast connection and huge to unlimited data offerings just like their Turbo NBN plan. It gives you unlimited data on a 50/20 speed tier for high-speed internet use at $75/month with no lock-in contract. Need faster data? Southern Phone’s NBN Max plan offers speed of up to 76Mbps typical evening speed for $95/month, no lock-in contract.

#3 Belong Premium Plan

Broadband for the entire family means it has to be unlimited and fast. Belong’s NBN100 plan with average download speed of 80Mbps at $95 per month, with no lock-in contract, is one of the excellent options available. For one, it’s cheaper than most and super flexible, too, considering it’s already configured on the NBN100 speed tier. There are no lengthy contracts, no activation fees, and more importantly, it’s supported by Telstra’s network.

#4 MyRepublic Premium Plan

MyRepublic’s NBN plans are of the good kind. For starters, unlimited data configured on NBN100/40 with typical evening speeds of 83Mbps is only at $99 per month with or with no lock-in contract. The Premium NBN plan is a great fit for a family that needs quality connection and reliable speed, even during peak hours, while keeping the internet bills humbly affordable. As for the contract terms, it’s pretty flexible. It’s either 12 months or month-to-month; though a lengthier contract gets you a WiFi modem for only $1. All of MyRepublic’s internet plans also include a home phone with unlimited local and national calls. It’s only $10 more if you want to add unlimited calls to Aussie landlines and mobiles.

#5 activ8me Sky Muster

For families in regional and remote areas, activ8me offers a range of satellite NBN reasonably priced to meet your family’s budget. Services start from $34.95/month for 150GB data and up to $124.95/month for 300GB running on 12/1Mbps speed. For larger households, the Sky Muster Plus plans can deliver with upgraded speed of 25/5Mbps from $69.95/month. For NBN broadband plans, activ8me has them from only $59.95/month and that already runs on the NBN50 tier with typical evening speeds of up to 46.4Mbps.

What is the best Broadband Plan for Families?

And as usual, make sure you check out the service availability in your area. Not to mention the critical information summary for any plan you’re considering. This will detail the total costs of any options or added extras you choose, including any area-specific setup fees, installation costs, customer service rates and terms of use.