The best NBN plans for gaming in 2025

Australia's national broadband network, or NBN, has come a long way since its first fraught rollout back in 2011, and much of that progress has occurred throughout 2025. There's been a huge infrastructure push this year, as NBN works towards the goal of upgrading its aging fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) connections to better, more reliable, and potentially much faster fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) ones.

That basically means that, for a huge chunk of Australians, speeds that once capped out at 100 Mbps on old FTTN connections, can now cap out at potentially 2,000 Mbps, though plans in the latter category aren't available just yet. The sweet spot at the moment is a 500 Mbps plan. Most 100 Mbps plans are automatically upgrading to this speed tier, so long as the user is on a FTTP or HFC (hybrid fibre coax) connection. By anyone's measure that's a substantial upgrade! The difference will be immediately noticeable, especially when downloading chunky game updates.

Are you eligible for a free upgrade to FTTP? You can easily check for yourself on the NBN website. If you are eligible, you'll generally need to use a form on your service provider's site to order an eligible plan, and the provider will then arrange the upgrade. If you aren't eligible, chances are you'll get your turn later this year or else in 2026. Overall, NBN Co intends to have 95 per cent of Australian premises on FTTP or HFC connections by the end of 2025—or at least able to order the necessary upgrade.

Below, we've compiled some editorial picks for the current best NBN providers and plans for gamers. You'll also find price-comparisons for high-speed NBN plans across all relevant plan tiers in case you'd rather shop around more broadly. And below all of that, you'll find a detailed FAQ about the main things gamers need to consider when choosing an internet provider to support their hobby, from ping time to download speeds and the various NBN connection types on offer.

The best NBN plans for PC gaming

Best NBN 100 plans for gaming if you're still rocking fibre-to-the-node (FTTN)

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What follows are the NBN 100 plans offered by providers we believe are best suited to gamers. While listed alphabetically, the providers themselves are basically neck-and-neck when it comes to their reputation for gamer-friendly internet connections, but as always, your personal experience may vary, in which case: hop around! We'll only ever recommend plans that have unlimited downloads.

From mid September 2025, most NBN 100 plans should receive a massive speed increase, effectively becoming NBN 500 plans, with 500 Mbps downloads and, in most cases, 40 Mbps upload speeds. But, if you're not yet eligible for an upgrade to FTTP, then you'll need to make do with one of the following for now.

Best reputation

Aussie Broadband | NBN 100 | AU$95p/m with no lock-in contract
Aussie Broadband arguably has the best reputation among Australian gamers, and the provider is careful to cultivate that prestige: It delivers some big talk about its gamer-friendly prowess. As a result, this NBN 100 plan hits a good sweet spot when it comes to price and reputation.

Of special interest is its transparency around ping times, which is the single-most important consideration for competitive gamers. You can check out their current ping times here.

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Lowest ping

Superloop | NBN 100 | AU$75p/m with no lock-in contract (AU$95 after 6 month introductory offer)
According to the ACCC's broadband performance report, Superloop is currently the very best low-latency provider, with a low average ping rate of 8.2ms during peak hours. That's enough to recommend it to competitive gamers, but it's also reasonably competitively priced.

Superloop also offers a Speed Boost service, which lets FTTP and HFC customers boost their connection to the next speed tier for five days per month, with these being bankable to a total of 30 days. It's a good thing to keep under your sleeve if you know a ridiculous 100GB Warzone 2 update is imminent. That said, if you're on a FTTN connection and using an NBN 100 plan, you can't really get any faster anyway.

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Want faster download speeds and have FTTP or HFC? Here are the best NBN 500 plans

Congestion free

Exetel One plan | NBN 500 | AU$80p/m with no lock-in contract
Exetel jumped the gun on NBN Co's September speed upgrades, launching its NBN 500 plan in July for a very reasonable flat rate of AU$80 per month—it requires an FTTP or HFC connection (speeds above 100 Mbps are not supported by FTTN connections). As far as download speeds go, Exetel is a great contender, promising the full 500Mbps even during peak hours. That effectively means this plan is what's known as 'congestion free'—so you should be able download games and updates as quickly as possible at any hour of the—provided the server at the other end can handle it.

While that doesn't mean much for real-time competitive gaming performance, Exetel's not exactly mucking around in that department either: when it comes to ping time it only suffers an average of 8.3ms latency during peak hours, according to details from the ACCC's broadband performance report. That's second best to Superloop's 8.1ms—which is not too surprising, given Superloop acquired Exetel in 2021.

Latency has dropped across the board over the last 12 months in Australia, so while competing ISPs used to suffer latencies during peak time of up to 22.6ms, nowadays 11.9ms is the highest (iiNet).

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Lowest introductory price

Spintel Home Turbo plan | NBN 500 | AU$64p/m (first 6 months, then AU$86.95p/m)

Spintel joined Exetel in jumping the gun on NBN 500 plans, and it's even offering a (slightly) cheaper alternative. While Exetel offers an ongoing AU$80 fee, Spintel is offering six months at AU$64, before increasing to AU$86.95 on an ongoing basis.

If you want to save some bucks, you can go with Spintel for AU$64 a month, then swap to Exetel. It's not a massive saving, but... it's a saving.

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What follows below is a list of all the best current prices for NBN plans, across the three main speed tiers (NBN 100, 500 and 1000), from over 30 major Australian providers. These rankings don't take into account the gamer-oriented perks of the previously listed ISPs, but may come in handy if you're looking for more competitive prices and don't mind losing a few ms in the ping department.

NBN 1000 plans

NBN 500 plans

NBN 500 plans are rolling out as we speak; check back soon for an exhaustive roundup of plans. In the meantime, check out the best NBN plans for gaming section, where you'll find a couple of recommended NBN 500 plans.

NBN 100 plans

FAQ

The best ISPs for gaming in Australia

Select Australian ISPs, including Aussie Broadband, sell themselves on having specific 'gaming' optimisations to their networking infrastructure and setup that can help lower pings. While the factors we've discussed below are still applicable on these ISPs, community feedback from gamers on these providers is generally positive – and as they're making specific claims about gaming speed, they should be more receptive to support requests in the instance you do have issues with ping for a specific game.

Telstra offers a Game Optimisation service, which uses the same DumaOS technology used in some gaming routers such as this one. This technology basically prioritises traffic to your gaming PC or consoles "to help curb lag spikes" and more. This service adds an addition AU$10 to your internet bill with Telstra, with the first month free, and requires you to have Telstra's own Smart Modem. We haven't tested this service ourselves, so can't vouch for its quality. If you have a gaming router with DumaOS, you probably don't need this service.

Also of note are Exetel and Superloop, both of which currently offer the best low-latency NBN connections, as per the ACCC.

Ping speed and gaming

For gamers who play a lot of online multiplayer, ping time is arguably the most important factor to consider. Ping speed is partially in the hands of your ISP, as it's possible for carriers to choose to optimise and route gaming traffic so that it's prioritised above other types – however, many influences on ping are completely outside your ISP's control, such as the type of NBN connection you're on and your home network setup.

When it comes to connection type, fibre to the premises (FTTP) tech is almost always going to offer the fastest pings because it's an end-to-end optical connection between you and your ISP—there's no 'legacy' technology involved that can slow things down. By comparison, fibre to the node (FTTN) and hybrid fibre-coax (HFC) use copper phone lines and coaxial cabling, respectively, which are inherently less responsive than optical fibre. If you're situated only a short distance from the local phone/internet exchange, being on a legacy connection tech might not have much of an effect, but if you live further away, or there's physical degradation to the lines, this might impact ping.

This will increasingly become an obscure problem as NBN rolls out its FTTP connections. You can see if you're eligible for a free upgrade here.

All of this means it's almost impossible to find out about ISP ping times prior to being connected—although opting for an ISP that specifically highlights its gaming chops should put you on a good first footing. (More on this below.)

Download speeds and gaming

Download speed is also another important, albeit secondary, concern for gamers.

On a wired NBN plan, all Aussie gamers should have a choice of either NBN 25, 50 or 100, and if you're on an FTTP or HFC connection, plans including 500, 750, 1000 and 2000. The numbers here mark the highest possible theoretical speed in Mbps (megabytes per second) you'll get on those plans. For example: NBN 1000 will download at 1Gbps per second at its best, but you'll almost never get that consistently.

Meanwhile, NBN 100 plans offer a maximum of 100Mbps, which means at best, a 130GB download will take about 3 hours (though remember: getting consistent maximum speeds with NBN tends to be rare). It's worth noting that the NBN tier you opt for shouldn't affect your pings, only your maximum download speeds.

All providers generally list a "typical evening speed" for each plan they offer, as that's when you'll likely experience the worst speeds on your plan. Most NBN 1000 plans advertise evening speeds of between 700 Mbps and 900 Mbps.

Regardless of the NBN speed you opt for, it may still be worth investing in one of the best gaming routers on the market. These won't improve the overall speed of your connection, but they can help reduce the chance of any lag being introduced by your home's network setup.

Connection types and gaming

If you are interested in one of the higher speed NBN plans, such as the NBN 500 and NBN 1000, you'll need the infrastructure for it. For NBN 500 plans, or indeed any plan that claims to offer more than 100Mbps, you'll need a HFC or FTTP connection – they won't work on a fibre to the node (FTTN) or equivalent connection.

Below are the four main types of fixed NBN currently available to consumers, in order of preference when it comes to gaming.

FTTP (fibre to the premises). As the name implies, this is an end-to-end fibre optic connection that goes straight to your home, rather than ending at a neighbourhood or building node and then relying on 'legacy' cabling to cover the last little bit. It's the best option, and as of September 2025 it's the most common form of NBN connection. If you're on an inferior FTTN connection and want to upgrade, check your eligibility on the NBN website. This connection type supports every NBN speed tier up to NBN 1000, and in the future NBN 2000.

HFC (hybrid fibre-coax). This is the second-best connection type. It supports up to 250Mbps due to the use of existing coaxial cable (originally installed for cable TV and internet) for the last 'in-building' part of an NBN connection. It is also theoretically capable of faster pings than FTTN.

FTTN (fibre to the node). This connection type uses copper phone lines from a local 'node', and only has top speeds of 100Mbps, so this is the 'worst' type for gaming – although in most cases it's still capable of perfectly adequate gaming performance. This supports connections up to NBN 100.

FTTC/B (fibre to the curb/basement). These connection types are a variation on FTTN that bring the fibre connection to an entry point in the building (rather than a nearby 'node'), but still uses copper phone lines for the last short section of the connection. It can offer a slight improvement over FTTN and can support up to 100Mbps, though Telstra don't currently offer NBN 100 plans to users with FTTC.

With all that said, the NBN connection type you have shouldn't add a huge amount of overhead to ping times. Unless there's serious degradation of an HFC or FTTN/C/B line involved, the latter can still often provide ping speeds under 10-20ms to local Aussie servers. So if you're having issues with high pings, it's likely either your ISP or your local Wi-Fi or wired network setup that's the cause.

Data caps and gaming

For those who spend a lot of time gaming, things can potentially get expensive if you're on a capped plan. If you're regularly downloading games from your terrifying Steam backlog, the gigabytes can rack up fairly quickly. With games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare requiring 130GB downloads, not to mention updates that sometimes soar into the 60GB region, you're not going to want any kind of download limit. Thankfully it's not (too) expensive to forego these limits, and most of the plans below offer unlimited data.