Tens of thousands of Australians have signed up to NBN during the COVID-19 pandemic

Many Australians working from home have had to reassess their home broadband and work out the best way to stay connected.

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Many Australians working home during the pandemic have been forced to reassess how good their broadband is as they become more reliant on it.

Home internet usage has surged, putting more pressure on networks to ensure people can stay connected while in isolation.

New independent analysis by YouGov Galaxy, commissioned on behalf of financial comparison website iSelect, found 41 per cent of Australians have considered switching internet providers in the past two months. And 17 per cent actually did go on to switch internet providers.

iSelect spokeswoman Laura Crowden said working from home had made many Australians realise they needed more reliable home internet.

“With most Aussies spending more time at home in recent months – including working and studying remotely – many of us have realised that our home internet connection quite literally isn’t up to speed,” she said.

“Now is the time to look into whether a faster internet plan or higher data allowance would be better suited to your changing internet needs especially if you are working from home.”

Many Australians have been forced to work from home during the pandemic and have had to make sure they have a good home broadband connection.

Latest figures from the National Broadband Network Co show since the start of April it connected 154,000 premises to the network.

NBN Co chief executive officer Stephen Rue said customers were hungrier than ever for larger amounts of data at faster speeds.

“As at 31 March 2020, 68 per cent of residential and business customers were connected to the NBN via wholesale speed tiers of 50 Mbps and above,” he said.

“More than 80 per cent of all new customers are signing up to speeds of 50 Mbps and above.”

Since April, about one in five new NBN customers have chosen retail plans on the 100Mbps wholesale speed tier.

During this time NBN Co has connected approximately 154,000 additional premises to the NBN access network.

More than seven million homes and businesses are now connected to the NBN, while a further 4.5 million are yet to sign up.

Belong chief executive officer Ben Burge urged customers to “look out for fees and charges”.

“Will the modem be free or do you have to pay for it and is there a connection charge?” he said.

“Also beware of temporary discounts. Calculate your average monthly cost based on paying the discounted price for the honeymoon period and then paying the ongoing rate thereafter.”

@sophieelsworth

SIGNING UP TO THE NBN

• Make sure you have NBN connected at your property.

• Contact your retail service provider (telco) to organise signing up.

• Be mindful it could take longer to connect with a provider because of COVID-19.

• Companies may have delays in sending modems to customers.

• Customers have 18 months to sign up to the NBN once it has been installed. The mandatory cut-off times have been extended to at least September.

Originally published as Tens of thousands of Australians have signed up to NBN during the COVID-19 pandemic