New minimum broadband speed proposal promises faster internet for all

By Christie Graham

Last updated 10 April 2025

Faster baseline broadband services could be on the horizon for all Australians.
The federal Department of Communications is pushing a proposal that aims to increase minimum broadband speeds from 25Mbps to 100Mbps.

In an attempt to keep pace with the country’s rapidly growing broadband network, Statutory Infrastructure Providers (SIPs) would legally be required to offer all customers this new minimum broadband download speed, which is four times the current offering, if this proposal is legislated.

What is a SIP?

Statutory Infrastructure Providers (or SIPs) operate and maintain select parts of Australia's internet infrastructure. They then sell wholesale access to these broadband services, whether they’re fixed-line or fixed-wireless networks, to your run-of-the-mill Internet Service Provider (ISP) — think Dodo, Aussie Broadband, iPrimus — which in turn sells it to the customer.

Examples of SIPs include NBN Co, OptiComm and Gtelecom to name a few.

When would these changes happen?

While plans under 100Mbps would still exist and could be offered by SIPs and sold onto customers via ISPs, all broadband users would finally be entitled to opt for a plan with minimum speeds of 100Mbps to achieve faster internet.

In February 2025, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) submitted a paper urging NBN Co to phase out NBN 25 plans in favour of NBN 50 becoming the new ‘entry-level offer’.

So what does this mean?

Currently, many SIPs can already offer 100Mbps as a minimum speed. However, others would require time to upgrade or replace their infrastructure to support high-speed capabilities. Coupled with the fact that passing this proposal into legislation would also take time, it’s likely this project would be rolled out in stages.

NBN Co itself once stated that 65% of customers would be on 100Mbps plans by the end of the 2029 financial year, which paints an interesting picture of when this could come into effect.

At the time of writing, there is no confirmation of whether this proposal will be approved, nor is there a hard timeline of when these upgrades could begin rolling out once they are legally signed off.