Exetel just gazumped NBN Co, dropping a great-value NBN 500 plan way ahead of schedule

New NBN tiers are set to propel internet speeds across Australia to new highs within a matter of months, including what will become the new entry-level fast tier, NBN 500. But one provider has decided it's not willing to wait for NBN Co to officially roll out the speed upgrades, and has debuted a new turbocharged plan 2 months early. It's also made the shock decision to discontinue all its previous NBN plans in place of this new, single, Goliath-sized option.

Taking a massive leap ahead of NBN Co's upgrade timeline, Exetel has launched its Exetel One plan, which promises 500Mbps typical evening speeds (TES) for just AU$80p/m. The well-regarded provider has also bid adieu to its other NBN and internet plans to focus solely on the One (and only) plan.

We've recommended a range of Exetel's NBN and mobile plans over the years on Tom's Guide, and this latest move looks like a canny one. Exetel previously offered internet connections between NBN 25 and NBN 250, and the Superloop-owned telco prominently featured on our best NBN plan pages for its great customer service, attractive deal pricing and low ongoing fees.

According to the latest ACCC report, Exetel continues to exceed its stated speeds, hitting an impressive 104.5% of its advertised plan speeds during all hours of the day, outperforming both TPG and Optus and falling just 0.6% behind Telstra. With those results in mind, there's no doubt that Exetel can deliver — or perhaps, overdeliver — with this new 500Mbps offering.

Exetel is a Tom’s Guide preferred partner (What does this mean?)

Connection, pricing and availability

As a first-of-its-kind offering, it's hard to talk too deeply about pricing here as there aren't any real competitors offering similar plans. However, when compared to NBN 100 plan prices right now, which average just over AU$93p/m, Exetel's 500Mbps offering has them beat at AU$80p/m — and with 5x maximum speeds.

To take full advantage of Exetel's superior plan, you'll need to have a fibre to the premises (FTTP) or hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) connection at home. Unfortunately, the telco has confirmed, at least for now, that new customers cannot yet access NBN's free fibre rollout in combination with this plan. If you're already an Exetel customer who has an FTTP or HFC connection, you can however migrate to the One plan via the Exetel app.

It's also worth pointing out that Exetel's plan is fairly no frills – it's strictly supplying the NBN service only – no hardware. If you need an unlocked, plug-and-play modem-router, we currently recommend an Amazon Eero 7 router for AU$299.99, which is capable of up to 5,000Mbps throughput and supports 120+ connected devices, making it well suited for an NBN 500 connection.

Cost-saving new features

Alongside its one ginormous speed tier, Exetel has introduced some smart and useful features for new and existing customers, giving users ways to save on their monthly bill or briefly boost their plan speed for a small fee.

The latter is effectively an upgrade of Exetel's previous 'Speed Boost' tool, which has been re-christened 'Warp Speed'. This allows those on the One plan to optionally boost their downloads from 500Mbps to a typical evening speed figure of 811Mbps (and the possibility of even faster) for a flat fee of AU$1 per day.

Alternatively, if you're heading on holiday sometime soon and won't be using your home connection for a while, Exetel has a perk just for you. The new 'Hibernate' mode will temporarily drop your speeds down to just 12Mbps and save you AU$1 per day off your monthly fee. There's no limit on how long you can use Hibernate for, so if you're away for a month, you could save up to AU$31. Both Warp Speed and Hibernate can be activated or deactivated via the Exetel app.

And, if your mates come over and are envious of your supercharged speeds, Exetel's new friend-referral program could save you both AU$1 off your plan each month for as long as you both remain connected. Like Hibernate, there's no limit to how many friends you can refer, and the discount is stackable, so in theory, if you have 80 friends, you could get your 500Mbps internet plan for free… just make sure your friends are real, though; imaginary ones won't help you here.

So if you're eager to get a head start on a new NBN 500 plan, Exetel's One plan is hard to beat.