Speed test your Optus internet

Whether you’re looking at mobile or internet, Optus is one of the big household names. In fact, as far as popularity goes, Optus is one of three big names in the mobile space (Telstra and Vodafone are the others) and again in terms of NBN (Telstra and TPG being the others). But while you may know the provider’s name, you may also be curious about just how fast your Optus internet is.

Luckily, we’ve got a tool for that.

In just a couple of clicks, you can run an internet speed test for your Optus connection. In truth, that speed-test tool above works on any internet connection. Just click or tap on the ‘Start Speed Test’ button to see your download speeds in megabits-per-second (Mbps). Then tap or click on ‘Show More Info’ to see your latency measured in milliseconds (ms) as well as upload speed in Mbps.

Regardless of the provider you’re with, we recommend using the result as a measurement to compare against any advertised speeds or latencies. If those Mbps values are lower or the latency milliseconds are higher than expected, it’s worth troubleshooting your Optus connection. For the best results, use an Ethernet-connected computer where possible. Alternatively, use a recent WiFi device connected to a 5GHz wireless network (if available) and get close to your router or modem-router while testing. Whatever the scenario, try to test at multiple times of the day and when other people aren’t using the internet in your home.

For download and upload speeds, you ideally want as large a number as possible before ‘Mbps’, relative to the max download/upload speeds of your Optus internet connection. In terms of most internet technologies, you can safely expect the download number to be bigger than the upload one. While the ACCC requires providers to self-report typical evening download speeds for fixed-line internet connections, they’re not required to offer upload speed or latency information.

Latency is the opposite of download and upload speeds in terms of results, in that lower numbers are better. Optus is one of 10 providers tracked by the ACCC as part of its ongoing broadband performance reports, with 11.0ms latency (eighth best) on average alongside 99.9% of plan download speeds (third best) and 87.7% of upload speeds (fifth best) in Q4 2022 (for fixed-line Optus NBN plans).

Below is a breakdown of the max achievable speeds on the different NBN speed tiers:

• NBN 12: 12Mbps download, 1Mbps upload
• NBN 25: 25Mbps download, 5 Mbps upload (or 10Mbps with Aussie Broadband)
• NBN 50: 50Mbps download, 20 Mbps upload
• NBN 75 (Aussie Broadband only): 75Mbps download, 20Mbps upload
• NBN 100/20: 100Mbps download, 20Mbps upload
• NBN 100/40 (Superloop, MyRepublic, Aussie Broadband, Pennytel, Exetel, Mate): 100Mbps download, 40Mbps upload
• NBN 250: 250Mbps download, 25 Mbps upload
• NBN 500 (Superloop, Vodafone, Exetel): 500Mbps download, 50Mbps upload
• NBN 1000: 990Mbps download, 50Mbps upload

Note that the maximum achievable speeds may be different from what a provider self-reports as its expected typical evening download speeds. Additionally, only Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) areas and select Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) suburbs are eligible to connect to NBN 250, NBN 500 and NBN 1000 plans.

Optus sells a handful of NBN plans—on NBN 50, NBN 100, NBN 250 and NBN 1000 speed tiers—alongside home wireless broadband plans on Optus 4G and Optus 5G networks. Check out the table below for an idea of the max and expected speeds from Optus internet technologies.

Optus notes that those homes connected by Fibre-to-the-Curb (FTTC), FTTB and FTTN technologies will receive confirmation of expected download speeds after connecting. Enter your address on the Optus website to see whether your home is eligible for Optus NBN, 4G or 5G home wireless broadband.

Below is a daily updating list of some of the most popular Optus internet plans from our comparison engine:

Most metro homes in Australia can sign up to NBN 50 and NBN 100 plans with Optus, both of which have parity between self-reported download speeds and max attainable download speeds on those NBN speed tiers. Below is a look at the Optus NBN 50 plan:

It’s common for providers in our database to offer 50Mbps download speeds for NBN 50 plans, which you’ll see in the plans below (ranked in terms of speed and lowest price):

Optus has 100Mbps self-reported evening download speeds for its NBN 100 plans:

There are only a handful of other NBN providers in our comparison engine that offer these download speeds, which you can see in the list below:

Optus has respectable 215Mbps evening speeds for its NBN 250 plan:

As you can see from the list below, Optus isn’t the fastest NBN 250 provider in our database, but it’s also not the slowest:

Finally, Optus plays it safe with its NBN 1000 plan, self-reporting 250Mbps evening download speeds:

Again, Optus isn’t the slowest NBN 1000 provider in our comparison engine, but there are a few others with noticeably faster self-reported evening speeds.

For most online tasks, the order of importance for internet speeds is download first, upload second and latency last, assuming nothing has gone awry. Download speed is the most important factor for pretty much everything online except when it comes to backing up files or streaming via Twitch, then upload is important. Latency is only noticeable in most online scenarios when it gets above 100ms (for online gaming) and much higher for pretty much everything you do online.

If you want an idea of how some common internet tasks perform in terms of download and upload with various Optus internet technologies, check out the table below:

Note that the typical evening download speeds are taken from Optus (where available), while the approximate average upload speeds are taken from the latest available ACCC NBN broadband performance data at the time of writing/updating, and max upload speeds are assumed for Exetel’s Fast-fibre plans (for context more than you should expect those speeds). We’ve used Opensignal’s data.