Telstra Price Increase 2026Why Has Your NBN Bill Gone Up?

Bundled with a modem and phone, the same increase applies: Basic NBN 25 goes from $93 to $97, Essential NBN 50 from $109 to $113.

Four or ten dollars a month doesn't sound like much, which is exactly why it works, nobody cancels their internet over four dollars. Stack it over 12 months though and that's $48 to $120 a year for a service that hasn't changed at all.

If you're on the Telstra basic NBN price rise tier or the newly repriced Telstra essential NBN price 2026 tier, you're the customer this pricing model is counting on, someone unlikely to check for a better deal.

NBN Co lifts wholesale prices every year, and providers pass some on, that part really is industry wide. What's harder to swallow is where the Telstra price increase 2026 actually landed.

Telstra's Premium, Ultimate and Ultrafast plans all stayed exactly the same price. Only Basic NBN 25 and Essential NBN 50, plus Premium 5G, went up. Here's the detail worth noticing: Telstra's own pricing page brands that unchanged Premium plan "100Mbps/500Mbps" in one breath, because it's actually a single product, your real speed comes down entirely to what your address can support, same price either way. Essential NBN 50 can now cost exactly what that Premium plan costs, a detail several comparison sites flagged too. Telstra no longer even sells Essential NBN 50 outright either, it's now only offered where a connection can't reach 70 Mbps, so if this rise hit your bill, you're almost certainly on a grandfathered plan, exactly the customer least likely to shop around.

Your real world speed depends on what your address can physically support, older HFC or copper connections sometimes cap out well under the advertised top speed. We've explained how that works, and how to check if you qualify for a free upgrade, in our NBN 100 vs NBN 500 explained guide.

Telstra doesn't own the wires, NBN Co does. Every provider buys access to the same network and resells it, so when a smaller provider charges less for the same speed, it's not a lesser service, it's just one not counting on the lazy tax to pad its margins.

If you're looking at cheaper alternatives to Telstra NBN, two things matter: your exact speed tier, not a slower one dressed up as a saving, and the ongoing price, not a honeymoon rate that quietly jumps later.

That's how Bill Owl runs it. Expand any plan and you'll see the honeymoon price plus what it jumps back up to after six or 12 months. View results as "Cheaper plans (Same speed)", "Cheaper plans (Faster speeds)" if more speed costs less than you're paying now, or let "The Owl's Choice" pick for you. Sort by "Ongoing rate", "First year cost" or "Best deal rate". No commission decides what's shown first, and sometimes the result just confirms you're already on a solid deal, a good outcome too.

Most Telstra NBN plans are contract free, so there's typically no early exit fee, you give notice and your final bill is calculated pro-rata. Wondering how to cancel Telstra NBN without penalty? Three checks cover it.

1. Confirm your contract type. Check your sign up confirmation or the "contract length" line on your bill, early exit fees are rare now but common on older bundles.
2. Sort out your modem. Some plans require a rented modem to be returned or paid out.
3. Time the switch. Line up your new connection date so you're not without internet for a few days.

The Telstra price increase 2026 isn't really a Telstra story, it's an industry pattern: quietly raise entry level prices and freeze everything above them. Whether you're asking why did my Telstra NBN bill go up or you've just spotted it on your statement, the fix is the same, check your options rather than pay the lazy tax by default.

Run your bill through Bill Owl and see, in under a minute, whether you're overpaying and by how much.