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u/Global-Village-1131

r/AUfrugal r/nbn r/perth
▲ 37 r/perth

Checked which NBN providers actually peer in Perth vs route everything via Sydney/Melbourne, useful if you churn providers like I do

A while back I got sick of telcos quietly jacking up prices once the honeymoon promo period ends, so I started putting together a little side project to track actual plan costs. Shared an early version over on nbn community and got a heap of good suggestions, things like CGNAT opt-outs, 30-day cancellation traps, and checking who actually has real local network presence versus who's just reselling someone else's backhaul.

That last point got me curious about Perth specifically, since WA always seems to get treated as an afterthought by providers based on the east coast. So I pulled the public BGP peering numbers (from bgp.he.net, so just what's publicly visible on public exchanges, not NBN Co's internal POI map) to see who actually peers locally here versus who's routing our traffic across the Nullarbor to Sydney or Melbourne first.

Here's what came up:

Providers with confirmed WA peering:

  • Aussie Broadband (20 exchanges)
  • Superloop (32)
  • Swoop (31)
  • Leaptel (17)
  • SpinTel (17)
  • Neptune Internet (16)
  • Tangerine, More Telecom, Purple Connect (20 each, since they wholesale via Aussie BB)

Providers with zero WA presence in the public IX data:

  • Exetel (NSW only)
  • Flip (NSW & VIC)
  • Dodo (NSW & QLD)
  • TPG (NSW, QLD, SA, VIC)

Worth noting: the big players, Telstra, Optus, iiNet, Vodafone, don't show up in public IX data at all because they mostly peer privately. That doesn't mean they don't have WA presence, just that this data can't confirm it either way.

All of this came out of a free NBN and mobile comparison tool I've been building (with some AI help along the way): https://jrsdigital.net/deals/, which has the same peering breakdown for other states too if you want to compare, and also works out whether switching providers would actually save you money if you're due for a churn.

Keen to hear from other Perth people specifically: if you're on one of the no-local-peering providers, do you actually notice it here, higher ping gaming, laggy video calls, slower browsing? And if you've switched providers in WA and felt a real difference, worth sharing.

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u/Global-Village-1131 — 5 days ago
▲ 132 r/AUfrugal+1 crossposts

Made a free page that tracks NBN promo prices so you don't get stuck on the loyalty rate

I switch NBN providers every 6 months or so, because the new customer intro price almost always beats what you get moved to once the promo ends. Kept losing track of exactly when that switch happened though, so I put together a page that lists current NBN deals from most of the major providers side by side: promo price, what it reverts to, and the actual first year cost so you can compare properly instead of just looking at the headline number.

https://jrsdigital.net/deals/

It's free, no login. Built it because I wanted it for myself, and figured other people switching for the same reason would find it useful too.

I also built an Android app called PriceMinder that does the same promo tracking automatically, so you don't have to remember. Deals page works fine on its own without it though. Full disclosure, I used AI to help build both of these. Plan is to keep them free and open for as long as I can afford to.

Happy to take feedback on the deals list, if a provider's missing or a price looks wrong let me know.

Right now it's tracking NBN plans from Aussie Broadband, Dodo, Exetel, Flip, iiNet, SpinTel, Superloop, Tangerine and TPG. Which provider am I missing? Drop it in the comments and I'll add it, planning to update the list based on suggestions from this thread rather than guess what's out there.

Edit (15 Aug): shipped a bunch of stuff from this thread since I first posted. Added Leaptel, fixed the missing amaysim data, added Optus, More Telecom, Arctel, TPG and Purple Connect. Added CGNAT and 30 day notice badges per plan, each one links to the provider's actual Critical Information Summary instead of just taking my word for it. Fixed the tier filter so NBN 1000/100 and 1000/400 stop getting lumped together, there's now a second filter for upload speed when a tier has more than one option. Also added a "public exchange footprint" badge per provider showing which states they actually peer in, from one of the suggestions in the comments. Thanks for the feedback.

Next up: cleaning up the mobile plans tab and ultimately planning the bundled offers.

Update: Added a "365-Day Long Expiry" toggle so you can pull up all the annual packs in one click, fixed the billing cycle math so annual prices don't get miscalculated as monthly anymore, and added Telstra/Optus/Vodafone network filters.

NEXT Stop - bundle filter

u/Global-Village-1131 — 3 days ago