What is Buddy Telco, and should you switch?

One of the key benefits that the National Broadband Network (NBN) was meant to bring in was more intense competition in the broadband space, especially for new brands.

Buddy Telco is the newest NBN provider on the block… sort of, but not entirely. It’s a budget offshoot of Aussie Broadband, focusing on a simpler set of NBN plans at price points slightly cheaper than that of Aussie Broadband itself.

Here’s the basic rundown of Buddy Telco’s plan pricing at launch.

This is far from a unique proposition on Aussie Broadband’s part, with competing NBN telcos such as Telstra providing lower-cost NBN under the Belong brand for example. Optus subsidiary Amaysim doesn’t currently offer home broadband plans, but it does have a page on its site stating that it’s going to be bringing them to market “soon”. Budget NBN brands attached to bigger telco brands are all the rage, clearly.

The price is obviously the key point, because most of its plans come in between $10 to $30 cheaper per month than parent company Aussie Broadband offers. By way of comparison, here’s Aussie Broadband’s plan pricing:

If you’re an existing Aussie Broadband Customer looking to save a few dollars a month, Buddy Telco could be a good option, given it’s still running on the same billing infrastructure and underlying NBN cables.

The other core idea behind Buddy Telco is simplicity, because it’s just selling basic NBN services, with little in the way of bundled frills or the kinds of additional tech-centric features – fixed IP addresses and the like – that honestly a lot of consumers don’t really need.

All of Buddy Telco’s plans operate on a month-to-month basis with no exit fees for early termination if you did decide to switch providers. In the instance  that you order a service and it turns out that your NBN service can’t match that speed tier, you’ll be given the option to either switch to a lower speed tier or exit your contract at no cost to you.

Simplicity is great, but it can also be problematic. 

Part of the way that Aussie Broadband is keeping the provision of Buddy Telco services low-cost is by dialling back its support options. You do still get Australian-based support, but it’s entirely via a web form or iOS App – with an Android app promised to arrive shortly – at first. More complex issues may be escalated to Aussie Broadband’s call centre, but by and large, you’ve got to be happy typing into a web form or app if you do hit issues.

You’ve also got to have your own on-premises modem/router ready to roll, because Buddy Telco won’t supply hardware at all.

If you do want more advanced NBN features such as a static IP address, that’s not part of the Buddy Telco offering at launch.

Another part of Buddy Telco’s simple approach that may be an issue for you is that it’s targeting the fixed-line NBN market only. If your NBN service comes via NBN Fixed Wireless or NBN Sky Muster then Buddy Telco simply doesn’t have plans for you.

Providing better value with a simpler service is a fine ideal, but it’s always worth checking relative pricing for any NBN plan when you’re shopping around – which you should do at least once or twice a year to ensure you’re getting the best value. 

Let’s take Buddy Telco’s NBN 50 tier plan as an example. That’ll cost you $75 per month with unlimited data and claimed typical evening speeds of 49Mbps down and 16Mbps up.

How does that compare against the best-value NBN 50 plans?