Origin Broadband NBN plans review

The trend among the NBN providers we track in our database is to entice new sign-ups via six months of promotional pricing. At the time of writing, Origin Broadband was offering discounted pricing for the first year, which is great for those first 12 months, but shifts its prices from cheaper to the more expensive end of the spectrum without promotional pricing.

With promotional pricing, Origin’s NBN 50 plan isn’t the cheapest but is still competitive in the first year. Still, there are cheaper options from Exetel, Spintel, Tangerine and Superloop. For comparison, below is a daily updating list of popular NBN 50 plans from our database.

Even with promotional pricing, the Origin NBN 100 plan is one of the more expensive options in our database. Consider plans from Exetel and Spintel for cheaper, faster alternatives. For context, the daily updating list below shows the most popular NBN 100 plans from our comparison engine.

Origin Broadband offers great speeds for its NBN 250 plan, but it’s still one of the most expensive options even with promotional pricing. Admittedly, you won’t find faster self-reported download speeds for cheaper typical pricing in the plans we track. Speaking of, below is a daily updating list of popular NBN 250 plans from our database.

Finally, Origin Broadband also offers an NBN 1000 plan. While pricey, it offers the equal fastest self-reported typical evening speeds (alongside Aussie Broadband) of the NBN 100 plans we track in our comparison engine. For an idea, check out the daily updating list of NBN 1000 plans below from our database.

Most Aussies who sign up to an Origin Broadband plan can expect great speeds, albeit not as fast as some of the competition. Still, while speeds could be better for its NBN 25, NBN 50 and NBN 100 plans, Origin Broadband is a speedy contender for its NBN 250 and NBN 1000 plans.

By way of example, below is how Origin Broadband fares next to some of the fastest NBN 100 plans in our comparison engine.

Currently an Origin Broadband customer? Use the internet speed test tool below to see how fast your internet is. If it’s not fast enough, you might want to jump to a faster NBN plan.

You shouldn’t expect a whole lot in the way of perks from Origin Broadband outside of no-contract, $0 setup fees that are typical of NBN plans these days. Origin Broadband does offer NBN Superfast and NBN Ultrafast plans for eligible Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) homes.

The main perk is for Origin energy customers who can save $10 a month if they bundle energy and broadband onto the same bill. Origin Broadband offers a NetComm modem-router or Google Nest WiFi as optional hardware purchases, but you can BYO NBN modem.

Still, look to providers like Telstra or Optus if you’re after perks. Below is a breakdown of Origin Broadband next to NBN providers renowned for perks.

While 4G home internet and 5G home internet plans are more the rage these days as NBN alternatives, Origin Broadband offers private fibre. If it’s available at your address, private fibre is a viable NBN alternative. Below is a daily updating list of popular private fibre plans from our comparison engine.

Because support experiences can differ from person to person, we focus on the number of support pathways available to customers. Outside of physical stores, Origin Broadband has every other major support pathway covered.

Reach out to Origin on Twitter or Facebook for help or browse through the helpful articles on the Origin Broadband website. Alternatively, use the online chat service or call Origin Broadband on 1300 980 711 for support. Phone support is available 7:00am to 7:00pm AEST Monday to Friday and 9:00am to 5:00pm AEST on Saturdays.

In terms of reported customer satisfaction, Origin Broadband is in the top five of the 20+ NBN providers we track in our comparison engine. At the time of writing, Origin Broadband had a 3.5 out of 5 star rating on Trustpilot from more than 12,000 user reviews.

Below is how Origin Broadband plans look next to popular plans from other NBN providers with high reported customer satisfaction.

For the 20+ NBN providers we track in our comparison engine, we use a schema to comparatively rank them all in terms of key metrics: price, speed, features, support and user-reported satisfaction. Price and speed are ranked relative to the NBN plan prices and speeds available from the NBN providers in our database.

An NBN provider doesn’t have to be the cheapest, but it should at least have the speed to justify a steeper price. Note that we use typical pricing to better determine overall value, rather than relying on potentially short-lived promotional pricing. For speed expectations, the trend is towards parity between max potential download speeds and an NBN provider’s self-reported typical evening download speeds for NBN 12 (12Mbps), NBN 25 (25Mbps) and NBN 50 (50Mbps) plans. Faster NBN speed tiers tend to offer below-parity speeds, but faster is still preferred.

For features, we favour NBN providers that offer more bang for your buck, while acknowledging that the price-to-speed ratio is the most important. Similarly, the more support pathways an NBN provider offers its customers, the greater its investment in helping which, in turn, offers more options for users. Finally, we scour user-review websites to find satisfaction scores for customers of NBN providers to paint a better picture of their reputations.

Read more about how we rate NBN providers.