When will NBN 2000 come to Australia?

At the moment, NBN 1000 plans are the fastest ones you can get in Australia. While that’s, admittedly, plenty fast, the news is that it’s only half of what you’ll be able to get with the two fastest NBN technologies connecting homes today. And if NBN Co has its way, it won’t be too long until NBN 1000 is what NBN 50 is to NBN 100 .

Before we delve into the ‘what’, let’s deal with the ‘when’. And the answer is: we don’t know, but potentially soon. Basically, NBN 2000 has been proposed by NBN Co and it’s now waiting to hear back from internet providers about the particulars. The deadline for provider feedback had passed at the time of writing, with the announcement of the outcomes still waiting to come through.

NBN Co says it offered to introduce NBN 2000 plans alongside proposed turbo-charge speed boosts to NBN 100, NBN 250 and NBN 1000 plans. If the internet providers accept that consecutive-launch timeline, expect NBN 2000 by no later than the start of March 2025.

NBN 2000 is the new speed tier proposed by NBN Co and is currently in consultation with NBN providers. The NBN Co pitch is that it’ll be called “Hyperfast”, which is a debatable linguistic upgrade over NBN 1000’s “Ultrafast” moniker. Semantics aside, NBN 2000 will be able to hit max theoretical download speeds of 2,000Mbps.

That’s double the max 1,000Mbps download speeds of the current fastest speed tier, NBN 1000. The catch with multi-gigabit plans in terms of download speeds is they’re not likely to ever hit 2,000Mbps downloads. Download speeds will be and currently are ultimately determined by the equipment and network outside the home as well as inside, plus the networks and reported speed expectations from NBN providers.

The more interesting prospect of the pitch is a practical increase to upload speeds. While NBN 1000 taps out at max 50Mbps—a paltry 5% of the max download speed—NBN 2000 will offer upload speeds up to 500Mbps. But there are a couple of catches.

Assuming the consulted internet providers go for NBN Co’s proposal, here’s what we’ll be looking at in terms of NBN 2000 plans:

• NBN Home 2000 (Hyperfast) for FTTP: max 2,000Mbps downloads, 200Mbps uploads
• NBN Home 2000 (Hyperfast) for HFC: max 2,000Mbps downloads, 100Mbps uploads
• Business fibre NBN 2000 (Hyperfast) plan for FTTP: max 2,000Mbps downloads, 500Mbps uploads

The first catch is those fastest 500Mbps max upload speeds will only be available to businesses. For residential users, the other more important catch is that NBN 2000 plans are only available to Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) homes. These days, all FTTP and HFC homes are eligible for no-disclaimer NBN 1000 plans. But only FTTP homes will have the option of 200Mbps uploads while HFC abodes will max out at 100Mbps uploads.

Note that the fastest NBN plans for Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC), Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) and Fibre-to-the-Node (FTTN) homes are still NBN 100 plans. There are, however, planned upgrade pathways for FTTC and FTTN users. As for NBN 2000 plan costs, nothing has been announced yet, but expect to pay more than NBN 1000 for the pleasure of the new fastest NBN plans on the block.

The first thing is you’ll need an NBN 2000 plan, and those don’t exist. Yet. The next thing is to ensure you’re in either an FTTP or HFC home. You can check the NBN technology that’s used to connect your home by inputting your address on the NBN Co website. Click on ‘View results’ and look for the information listed under ‘Technology used in your connection’ on the results page.

There are also equipment requirements. The first is an NBN connection box, called the Next Generation FTTP Network Termination Device (NTD). This upgraded NBN NTD has a single Ethernet port capable of 2.5Gbps speeds, compared to the four 1Gbps Ethernet ports on the current FTTP connection boxes. Note that there’s no word yet on whether HFC NBN connection boxes need a similar upgrade for NBN 2000 plans.

FTTP and HFC homes that sign up for an NBN 2000 plan will also want an NBN-ready router that’s capable of multi-gigabit speeds, namely one with at least a 2.5Gbps internet port. You’ll also need a Cat6 Ethernet cable (or newer), which is capable of speeds up to 10Gbps, to connect the NBN connection box and your router. For wired devices, the router should also have at least 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports. And for wireless devices, WiFi 5 is theoretically fast enough for NBN 2000 speeds, but WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 devices—the ones you use and the router or modem-router itself—will offer a better chance at hitting max speeds.