The short answer
What "unlimited" really tells you about a plan
Almost every NBN plan sold in Australia now comes with unlimited data, and retailers still print the word "unlimited" in the biggest font on the page. That is marketing, not a feature, because unlimited has become table stakes: practically every plan has it, and it costs the retailer almost nothing to offer. Raw data volume is not what the network charges them for. What costs money is bandwidth, the shared capacity (called CVC) that retailers buy from NBN Co to carry everyone's traffic at peak. A gigabyte you download at 3am is nearly free for them; the same gigabyte at 8pm, when the whole street is online, needs capacity they have to pay for. So chasing "unlimited" distracts you from the one number that genuinely differs between plans: the Typical Evening Speed. This page explains why unlimited is a non-event, why bandwidth is the real cost, and what to compare instead.
Here is the core takeaway in one line: unlimited broadband is now the default on almost every NBN plan and costs the retailer almost nothing, so it is table stakes rather than a feature, and the number that genuinely differs between plans is the Typical Evening Speed, not the word "unlimited". Once you see that data volume is rarely the constraint, the marketing falls away and one real question remains: when the whole street is online at 8pm, does this plan hold its speed? That is decided by how much shared bandwidth the retailer chose to buy, and it is published as the evening speed.
Reframe the assumption: "unlimited" is not a benefit you are buying, it is a baseline you already have. A plan that shouts "unlimited" but quietly carries a poor evening speed is worse than a modest plan that holds its speed. Compare on the Typical Evening Speed and you are comparing what you will actually experience.
The blind spot
Why most unlimited broadband guides miss the point
Most "best unlimited broadband" articles do one of three unhelpful things, and each one keeps you focused on a feature that no longer separates plans.
First, they treat unlimited as the headline benefit. They rank plans by who offers unlimited data, as if that were a meaningful difference, when nearly every plan on the market already has it. Pointing at unlimited in 2026 is like praising a car for having four wheels. It tells you nothing about which plan is actually better.
Second, they confuse data volume with speed. They imply that unlimited data means a fast, worry-free connection, but the two are unrelated. Unlimited only means you will not run out of gigabytes; it says nothing about how quickly those gigabytes arrive at peak time. An unlimited plan can crawl every evening, and many do.
Third, they never explain the retailer's real cost. They leave you thinking data is expensive to supply, so unlimited must be a generous giveaway. The opposite is true: raw volume is cheap, and the genuine cost is peak bandwidth. Miss that and you will keep paying attention to the wrong number on every plan you compare.
How the cost of broadband is built, piece by piece
Expert analysis: why unlimited is cheap and bandwidth is dear
The network charges for bandwidth, not for gigabytes
The NBN is a wholesale monopoly. NBN Co owns the network and sells to retailers (the industry calls them RSPs, or Retail Service Providers) such as Telstra, Optus, Aussie Broadband, TPG and dozens of smaller telcos. The key fact is what NBN Co bills them for. The big variable charge is bandwidth, the shared capacity (its technical name is CVC, Connectivity Virtual Circuit) that carries everyone's traffic through each local exchange point. It is priced on how much capacity the retailer reserves, not on the total volume of data their customers move in a month. That single billing choice is why unlimited data became the norm.
Why a gigabyte at 3am is nearly free and a gigabyte at 8pm costs money
Bandwidth is about the busiest moment, not the monthly total. A retailer has to buy enough shared capacity to carry its customers' traffic at peak, the 7pm to 11pm window when most Australians are online. Off peak, that capacity sits mostly idle, so a gigabyte downloaded at 3am rides on capacity already paid for and costs the retailer almost nothing extra. The same gigabyte at 8pm competes for capacity the retailer must buy more of. Because lifting the monthly cap to unlimited barely changes the peak, it barely changes the retailer's costs. Unlimited is cheap to give away precisely because volume is not the cost driver.
So "unlimited" is a commodity, and the differentiator is the evening
Once unlimited costs a retailer almost nothing, every retailer offers it, and it stops being a way to tell plans apart. What still differs is how much shared bandwidth each retailer buys per customer. Buy generously and the plan holds its speed at peak; buy stingily to protect margin and the connection slows when the neighbourhood logs on. This shows up in one published figure, the Typical Evening Speed (TES): the download speed a retailer says you can expect from 7pm to 11pm. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the ACCC) also runs Measuring Broadband Australia, which tests real homes and reports which retailers actually hold their speed at peak.
Connection technology, the 2025 upgrade, and no price cap
Two more structural facts shape what unlimited buys you. First, your connection technology sets the ceiling: Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and most Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) reach the top tiers, while Fibre to the Node (FTTN) runs the last stretch over copper and often cannot exceed NBN 50 or NBN 100, no matter how much data the plan offers. Second, from late 2025 NBN Co lifted the wholesale speeds on eligible FTTP and HFC lines at no extra wholesale cost, pushing the Fast tier toward 500 Mbps, Superfast toward 750 Mbps and Ultrafast toward 2000 Mbps, though FTTN copper gets none of it. And unlike electricity, which has a default-offer price cap (the DMO), internet has no price cap at all, so the spread between a sharp plan and a lazy one stays wide. None of that is about data volume; all of it is about speed.
Interactive explainer
Do you actually need to think about data?
Slide your rough monthly usage and see how it stacks up. For almost every household the answer is the same: you sit comfortably under any cap, unlimited is the default, and the real question is your evening speed.
How much data do you really use?
Indicative only. Drag the slider to your rough monthly usage in gigabytes.
Or pick the household that sounds like yours
The verdict
Assumptions: usage profiles based on typical Australian household consumption; an HD stream uses roughly 3 GB an hour and a 4K stream roughly 7 GB an hour. Almost all households sit far below any modern plan's limit, which is why unlimited is now standard. Sources: ACCC Measuring Broadband Australia, NBN Co usage data, Canstar Blue 2026.
| Household | What they do | Typical monthly use | Unlimited plan? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo light user | Browsing, social media, a little HD streaming | ~80 to 150 GB | Covered by any plan |
| Couple, moderate | Daily HD streaming, web, some video calls | ~200 to 400 GB | Covered by any plan |
| Family, heavy | 4K streaming on several TVs, gaming, working from home | ~500 to 900 GB | Covered by any plan |
| Power household | Multiple 4K streams, large game downloads, cloud backups | ~1000 to 1800 GB | Covered by any plan |
What this looks like in real homes
How the unlimited fixation costs Australians
The mechanics above are not theory. They are exactly how households end up paying attention to the wrong thing:
The "unlimited" plan that stutters every night
A family picks a plan because it proudly advertises unlimited data, then watches it buffer every evening. They never came close to a data limit; the retailer simply bought too little shared bandwidth, and the published Typical Evening Speed had said so all along, in smaller print than the word "unlimited".
The light user who paid up to feel safe
A solo renter using about 90 GB a month upgrades to a pricier "unlimited everything" plan for peace of mind. They were already covered many times over by any plan on the market, so the extra spend bought a reassurance they did not need and no speed they could feel.
The capped bargain that was actually fine
A retiree on a rare capped plan worries they are missing out and switches to a dearer unlimited one. Their real usage sat well under the cap, and the new plan had a lower evening speed, so the "upgrade" cost more and delivered less when it mattered.
The switch that fixed it for free
A household stuck on a congesting unlimited plan moves to a retailer with a higher Typical Evening Speed on the same tier. Same unlimited data, same monthly ballpark, no new install, and the evening stutter disappears. The fix was the retailer's bandwidth, not the data allowance.
The insider insight
Unlimited is the cheapest thing a retailer can give you
Here is the part most broadband guides never say out loud. The industry markets "unlimited" so hard precisely because it is the cheapest thing a retailer can hand over. It costs them almost nothing, since their real bill is for peak bandwidth, not for the gigabytes you move. Putting "unlimited" in the biggest font draws your eye to a commodity everyone already has and away from the figure that actually varies and actually costs them money to deliver: how much shared bandwidth they bought to hold your speed at 8pm. The Typical Evening Speed is where that spending decision becomes visible, which is exactly why a retailer that skimped on it would rather you read "unlimited" instead.
The non-obvious truth: on the NBN you are not buying data, you are buying a retailer's willingness to pay for peak capacity. Unlimited tells you the cheap part is covered; the Typical Evening Speed tells you whether the expensive part is. The households that get the best value treat unlimited as a given, pick the speed tier from their concurrent demand, then choose the retailer with the highest evening speed for that tier. Because internet has no price cap, the gap between a sharp plan and a stingy one is wider than most people assume.
The practical consequence: never compare broadband plans on the word "unlimited". Almost every plan has it, it costs the retailer next to nothing, and the evening speed is the figure that tells the good plans from the lazy ones.
Grounded in the analysis
What you should actually do about data
Specific moves that follow from how broadband pricing is built, not generic advice.
Treat unlimited as a given, then ignore it
Assume any plan you shortlist is unlimited, because almost all are, and it costs the retailer next to nothing. Do not pay a premium for the word, and do not let it sway your choice. It is the floor, not a feature.
Size the speed tier to your concurrent demand
Count what runs at the same time at 8pm, not your monthly gigabytes. One or two light users sit on NBN 25 or NBN 50; a busy home with 4K streaming, gaming and working from home wants NBN 100. Check your connection technology can reach it before paying for a top tier.
Choose the retailer by Typical Evening Speed
Among plans on your chosen tier, compare the Typical Evening Speed, not the headline data allowance, and lean on the ACCC Measuring Broadband Australia results. Most plans are month to month, so if the evening speed disappoints, switch with no new install.
Want to see what your line does today? Run our internet speed test, read up on how NBN tiers really work, or check whether home wireless broadband suits your address.
Current figures, last updated 2026-06-16
Indicative Australian broadband figures for 2026. Sources: NBN Co wholesale pricing, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Measuring Broadband Australia programme, NBN Co usage data, and Canstar Blue 2026. Usage and evening speeds vary widely by household, retailer and connection technology.
The bottom line
Why unlimited stopped being a reason to choose
Unlimited broadband was a genuine selling point a decade ago, when data caps were tight and excess charges stung. That world is gone. Unlimited is now the default on almost every NBN plan, and it costs the retailer almost nothing because their real bill is for peak bandwidth, not for the gigabytes you move. So treat unlimited as a given, size the speed tier to what your household runs at the same time, confirm your connection can reach it, then choose the retailer by its Typical Evening Speed. With NBN Co's 2025 upgrade now flowing through to eligible fibre lines and no price cap on internet to rein in the laggards, the plan that holds its evening speed, not the one that shouts "unlimited" loudest, is the one worth paying for in 2026.
Common questions
A Selectra expert answers your unlimited broadband questions
For almost everyone, the question is moot, because unlimited data is now the default on Australian NBN plans rather than a paid upgrade. Very few retailers still sell capped plans, and the unlimited ones rarely cost more for the same speed tier. So you are not really paying extra for unlimited; you are getting it because it costs the retailer almost nothing to provide. What you should pay attention to instead is the Typical Evening Speed, the figure that genuinely differs from plan to plan and decides what your connection feels like at 8pm.
Because raw data volume is not what the network charges them for. NBN Co bills your retailer mainly for bandwidth, the shared capacity (called CVC) needed to carry traffic at peak times, not for the total gigabytes you move in a month. A gigabyte downloaded at 3am, when the network is quiet, costs the retailer almost nothing; the same gigabyte at 8pm, when everyone is online, needs capacity they have to pay for. Since most data is consumed in predictable evening peaks, lifting the monthly cap to unlimited barely changes a retailer's costs. That is why unlimited became standard.
A solo light user might move 80 GB to 150 GB a month; a couple streaming HD daily lands around 200 GB to 400 GB; a heavy family with 4K streaming, gaming and working from home can reach 500 GB to 900 GB; and a genuine power household with multiple 4K streams and large game downloads might hit 1000 GB to 1800 GB. The point is that all of these sit comfortably under what an unlimited plan offers, and even old capped plans were often generous enough. Data volume is rarely the constraint; evening speed is.
Compare the Typical Evening Speed (TES), the download speed a retailer says you can expect during the busy hours of 7pm to 11pm. Retailers are required to publish it, and unlike "unlimited" it genuinely differs between plans, because it reflects how much shared bandwidth the retailer bought per customer. Two plans on the same NBN 100 tier, both unlimited, can advertise very different evening speeds. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) also runs Measuring Broadband Australia, which tests which retailers hold their speed at peak. Pick the tier for your household, then choose the retailer by its evening speed.
A handful do, usually positioned as cheap entry plans, but they are now the exception. Most retailers found that capped plans created billing complaints and excess-usage anxiety without saving them much, since the cost driver is peak bandwidth, not total volume. The result is that unlimited is effectively the market standard. If you do see a capped plan, check whether the saving is real once you account for your actual usage, and never assume a cheaper capped plan beats an unlimited one with a higher Typical Evening Speed.
Absolutely, and this is the trap. Unlimited only means you will not run out of data; it says nothing about how fast that data arrives at peak time. A plan can be unlimited and still crawl every evening if the retailer bought too little shared bandwidth per customer. That is why an unlimited plan with a poor evening speed can be worse than a quieter plan that holds its speed. With no price cap on internet, the gap between a plan that holds its evening speed and one that does not is wide, so always read the Typical Evening Speed.
