Ever wondered how much NBN data other people use, or what part of Australia uses the most? We have, because of course we have, and NBN Co delivered.
Please prepare to nerd out with us over some fun, light-hearted Friday afternoon NBN data.
The highest average NBN data usage in Australia
Australia-wide, 445GB is the average amount of NBN data a household used in a month over the period spanning January to March. Yikes – I remember having to stick to under 50GB not even 10 years ago. NBN put that into perspective for us. 445GB is the equivalent of 198 hours of Netflix – 6.6 hours a day; or 659 hours of video conferencing. (21.9 hours of video calls a day sounds absolutely awful.)
With 445GB the country-wide average, one Australian city takes the title for the highest average monthly NBN data usage, with 562GB. That place is the City of Playford in South Australia.
Following closely behind Playford is Queensland’s Logan City, with 559GB used in March 2023. Kwinana in Western Australia averaged 557GB; further north in Port Hedland, they averaged 548GB; Blacktown was NSW’s highest average users, with 546GB; followed by Ipswich in Queensland with 546GB; Melton in Victoria with 542GB; the City of Serpentine-Jarrahdale in WA with 541GB; Karratha in WA with 528GB; and rounding out the top 10 was Liverpool in NSW with 526GB. A pretty heavy WA skew, despite SA taking out the top spot.
Elsewhere, according to NBN, 691,000 people around the country downloaded over a terabyte of data. Of course, this is just NBN data. The NBN network only carries 87 per cent of our country’s download data.
While this is just a bit of NBN nerdy fun for us all to enjoy, the company responsible for rolling out the National Broadband Network took the opportunity to offer some advice.
“It’s more important than ever to have an internet plan that suits your needs, but two out of every three NBN customers haven’t changed their NBN network internet plan provided by their retail service provider over the past three years,” NBN customer experience expert (real title) Jane McNamara said.
“Technology has advanced, data use on the NBN network has tripled in six years – but has your plan kept up? We encourage customers to check with their internet provider to see if the plan they are using has enough speed and data inclusions.”
Solid advice. And would you look at that. We’ve got a wrap up of the cheapest NBN plans for every speed tier.