Better coffee and now better NBN? Melburnians may have added another
bragging right over Sydneysiders

Date:
Mon, 10 Aug 2026 23:49:23 +0000

Description:
Data recently published by Ookla indicates the median fixed-line internet speed achieved in Melbourne is faster than Sydney, but does that tell the whole story?

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Adding more fuel to the fire over which city is actually Australias best place to live, those residing in the all-seasons-in-a-day city of Melbourne have a new statistic on their side
and it all relates to fixed-line broadband speed.

Ookla, the company behind the hugely popular Speedtest tool that helps anyone diagnose their home internet speeds, has published its latest Global Index rankings , revealing median fixed-broadband download speeds by country and city. As a country, Australia is slowly but surely moving up the table. There was a time we ranked as low as 86th, but we now sit at 50th, with a median fixed-broadband download speed of 162.34Mbps. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

That improvement follows NBN Cos September 2025 speed-tier shake-up , which introduced a 2Gbps wholesale option for eligible FTTP and HFC premises, alongside faster speeds on several existing higher-end tiers. Of course, not every Australian can access 2Gbps just yet and, as well see, the plan you choose is only one part of the equation.

For context, Singapore takes the crown with a median download speed of 447.75Mbps. One can only dream of a day when that becomes a reality Down Under. You may like 'Slow or unreliable broadband is still a daily
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to their daily life EE launches its fastest fibre broadband ever - 8GB per second speeds should appeal to home workers, gamers and AI developers alike Millions at risk: 1 in 3 users are still stuck on Wi-Fi routers using almost 20-year-old tech here's why it matters Why the huge gap? There are several reasons why Australia trails the pack so dramatically although with 141
other countries clocking slower speeds, things could certainly be worse and, in my mind, one of the most obvious is that many Australians are still connected to comparatively slow NBN plans.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission publishes a quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report that provides an overview of active NBN connections and their download data rates. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

The most recent report, covering the March quarter of 2026 and published in July, revealed there were just over 2.665 million active 50Mbps NBN connections, out of a total of 8.839 million residential broadband services. That works out to around 30.2%.

A 50Mbps plan naturally puts a ceiling on the speed a customer can record in
a Speedtest. If enough users on lower-speed tiers are represented in Ooklas sample, that will bring the national median down.

One relatively straightforward way for Australias international standing to improve, then, is for more eligible households to take advantage of NBN Cos free fibre upgrade . The program is open to millions of eligible FTTN and
FTTC premises, allowing them to upgrade to FTTP if they take out an eligible high-speed service such as one of the best NBN 500 plans . What to read next The best mesh Wi-Fi system 2026 Data center operators must take local populations seriously to succeed Cloudflare reveals some of the wildest reasons behind Internet downtime across the world A fixed-line civil war Move the slider over to City and the results become much more varied, with cities from North and South America, Asia and Europe all jostling for position. Valparaso in Chile takes the crown with a huge 425.84Mbps, followed by Abu Dhabi with 399.92Mbps, for example.

Australian cities evidently have some work to do. Scroll down to position 64 and you hit Melbourne with a median download speed of 177.69Mbps faster than Australias national median, it must be said while Sydney trails behind in position 76 with a meagre 149.91Mbps.

A difference of 27.78Mbps might not sound like much, but Melbournes median result is around 18.5% faster than Sydneys. When intercity tensions are already high, thats a huge bragging right for the southerners. Wait, we can (try to) explain Nobody ever wants to be seen as the weaker of two, and while the reported figures are great news for people in Victoria, there is potentially a plethora of factors at play that pave the way for a Melbourne victory.

Were not here to make excuses, of course, but there are plenty of unknowns.

Firstly, there could simply be a larger proportion of Melburnians connected via superior fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure. FTTP allows households to access the fastest NBN plans , including the newer multi-gigabit options
where available.

While its not totally conclusive, there is some evidence to support this
idea. That evidence is publicly available technology-mix figures, although theyre reported at a state level, rather than for Greater Melbourne and Greater Sydney specifically. Data compiled from NBN rollout information indicates Victoria has a higher share of premises using FTTP than NSW
roughly 66% versus 60% while it also indicates there are more active connections on the inferior fibre to the node (FTTN) connection type in NSW too.

This doesnt completely settle the argument. The figures not only include regional areas, but they also show the technology available to a property, as opposed to an active plan supplying an address. All fixed-line connections
are welcome Furthermore, on the subject of NBN, Ooklas Speedtest results dont only capture NBN connections, but fixed-broadband tests from other fixed networks too, including private fibre operators. Both Melbourne and Sydney
are home to several such networks, including Vocus, GigaComm and OptiComm, while Melbourne also has DGtek a private FTTP network concentrated in the citys CBD and inner south-east.

Exact figures for active connections on those networks are tricky to come by. But if Melbourne has a higher concentration of people connected to these
kinds of high-speed private fibre services, they could be recording considerably quicker test results and helping push its city median upwards. Not telling the complete story? Another excuse potential explainer is the way Ookla collects its data. Whereas the ACCCs Measuring Broadband Report which published its final instalment in June 2026 monitors a selected group of Australian homes across nine popular ISPs, Ookla receives data when people choose to run a Speedtest.

This doesnt mean someone repeatedly checking their connection can single-handedly skew the data, as Ookla averages each unique users results into a single sample for the relevant time period and location. Still, the results are dependent on who chooses to test. Melbournes sample could contain a different mix of internet plans, connection technologies, devices and Wi-Fi setups than Sydneys. (Image credit: TP-Link) When did you last check your Wi-Fi router? Home equipment can make a considerable difference too. A household with a Wi-Fi 5 router tucked away in a cupboard, a busy 2.4GHz network and a phone testing from the other end of the house could record a much slower result than the same connection tested over Ethernet.

On the flip side, a newer Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 router, a properly positioned mesh system and a compatible device can give a household a far better chance of getting close to the speeds it actually pays for. That doesnt make the underlying internet plan any faster, of course it simply means the home network is less likely to be the bottleneck.

If your own Speedtest result seems suspiciously low, it may be worth checking out our guide to the best mesh Wi-Fi systems to find out if your home could benefit from an upgrade.

And, trying to claw a point back for Sydney, it can be argued that people often run a speed test when their internet connection starts lagging. While Melbournes median tested speed is higher, that doesnt necessarily mean every connection in the city is consistently faster or more reliable. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/wi-fi-broadband/better-coffee-and-now-bett er-nbn-melburnians-may-have-added-another-bragging-right-over-sydneysiders


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