Every Australian business needs internet. That much is settled. The harder question — the one that rarely gets asked until something goes wrong — is: what level of internet do you actually need?
NBN Business Broadband and Enterprise Ethernet will both get you online. Both come with static IP addresses. Both are sold as "business-grade." But the similarity ends there. The real difference between these two products is not speed or price — it is what each one guarantees when things go wrong, and how much your business suffers when that moment arrives.
If a three-hour internet outage on a Tuesday morning costs your business a minor inconvenience, that is one answer. If it costs you $10,000 in lost revenue, stalled client work, or a compliance breach, that is an entirely different answer. This article walks you through exactly how these two products differ, who each one suits, and how to make the right call for where your business is right now.
What Business Broadband (NBN) Delivers
Pickle's Business Broadband is delivered over the NBN — the National Broadband Network infrastructure that NBN Co has rolled out across Australia using a mix of technologies including Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), Fibre to the Building (FTTB), and Fibre to the Node (FTTN), depending on what has been deployed at your address.
Speeds range from 50/20 Mbps at the entry level up to 1000/400 Mbps on FTTP-connected premises. Every Pickle Business Broadband plan includes a static IP address as standard — important for businesses running VoIP phone systems, remote access, or any hosted services that need a consistent public address.
The honest truth about NBN Business is that it operates on a best-effort basis. The NBN is shared infrastructure. Your connection uses the same fibre or copper that NBN Co has deployed across many premises in your area. When there is congestion at the aggregation point — what NBN Co calls the CVC — speeds slow. When there is a fault in the local access network, your restoration sits alongside every other business and residential customer in that fault zone.
Pickle works to restore NBN faults during business hours, but there is no contracted restoration window. For many businesses, that is perfectly acceptable.
NBN Business Broadband suits:
- SMEs with 5–30 staff primarily using cloud applications (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, accounting software)
- Businesses with VoIP phone systems that handle light to moderate call volumes
- Retail outlets, small professional services firms, and single-site offices
- Businesses that could manage a rare outage of 30 minutes to a few hours without severe operational or financial impact
What Enterprise Ethernet Delivers
Enterprise Ethernet is a different product category entirely. Where NBN connects you to shared infrastructure, Enterprise Ethernet is a dedicated physical fibre circuit run from the exchange or point of presence (PoP) directly to your premises. There is no sharing. No contention. No aggregation point creating a bottleneck during peak hours.
Speeds are symmetrical — 100/100 Mbps, 500/500 Mbps, 1 Gbps/1 Gbps, right up to 10 Gbps/10 Gbps. What you provision is what you get, in both directions, at all times.
The SLA is what separates Enterprise Ethernet from everything else. When a fault occurs, you are at the front of the queue with a contracted response time — for example, a four-hour response and same-day restoration target. That commitment is backed by Pickle and the carrier, not offered as a best effort.
Enterprise Ethernet also supports advanced routing requirements: static IP addresses, routed subnets, and BGP routing are all available. For businesses running their own infrastructure or connecting multiple sites, this level of control matters.
Enterprise Ethernet suits:
- Financial services firms, legal practices, and accounting firms where downtime equals direct revenue loss or compliance exposure
- Call centres and contact centres where the phone system is the business
- Businesses hosting internal servers, applications, or private cloud environments
- Headquarters sites carrying internet traffic for branch offices
- Data-heavy operations with large upload requirements: engineering, media production, backup replication, video conferencing at scale
The Key Differences, Explained Plainly
Best-Effort vs Guaranteed SLA
"Best-effort" is not a criticism of NBN — it is simply how the technology works. Shared infrastructure means shared risk. During a fault, restoration happens in the order that technicians can work through the fault queue. For most SMEs, the occasional outage is an inconvenience.
A guaranteed SLA means your provider has committed, in writing, to a response and restoration window. If that window is missed, there are contractual remedies. For businesses where every hour offline is measurable in revenue lost or client trust damaged, a guaranteed SLA is not a luxury — it is a business requirement.
Symmetrical vs Asymmetrical Speeds
NBN plans are asymmetrical by design: download speeds are substantially faster than upload speeds. A 100/20 Mbps plan gives you 100 Mbps down but only 20 Mbps up. For basic web browsing and cloud app usage, that asymmetry is invisible. But for businesses uploading large files, hosting video conferences for multiple concurrent users, or running a VoIP phone system, upload speed is just as critical as download speed.
Enterprise Ethernet is symmetrical by design. 100/100 Mbps means 100 in both directions. For a contact centre handling 30 simultaneous calls, or a business replicating data to an offsite backup location every night, that symmetry is operationally significant.
Contention Ratio
NBN shares its provisioned capacity across an aggregation point. During peak periods — typically late afternoon and early evening — that shared capacity can create congestion, resulting in slower speeds even on a business-grade plan.
Dedicated fibre has no contention ratio. Your provisioned capacity is your capacity, full stop. You will see your provisioned speeds at 9am Monday morning and 5pm Friday afternoon equally.
Pricing Philosophy
NBN Business Broadband is priced as a cost-effective solution for businesses that need reliable connectivity without the overhead of dedicated infrastructure. Enterprise Ethernet carries a higher price point that reflects the dedicated fibre circuit, the carrier-grade SLA, and the priority fault restoration that comes with it.
The right way to think about the price difference is not "expensive vs affordable" — it is "what does an hour of downtime cost your business?" If the answer is material, the Enterprise Ethernet premium is not a cost, it is risk mitigation.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Business Broadband (NBN) | Enterprise Ethernet |
|---|---|---|
| Speed range | 50/20 Mbps to 1000/400 Mbps | 100/100 Mbps to 10 Gbps/10 Gbps |
| Speed symmetry | Asymmetrical (download > upload) | Symmetrical (equal in both directions) |
| SLA / restoration guarantee | Best-effort, business hours | Guaranteed SLA, priority restoration |
| Static IP | Included as standard | Included as standard |
| Contention | Shared infrastructure (CVC) | Dedicated — no contention |
| BGP routing | Not available | Available |
| Infrastructure | Shared NBN access network | Dedicated fibre to premises |
| Best for | SMEs, offices, light-to-moderate cloud use | Critical operations, call centres, hosting, HQ sites |
| Price positioning | Competitive entry-level business pricing | Premium — reflects dedicated infrastructure and SLA |
How to Decide: A Practical Framework
Work through these questions honestly. They will tell you which product belongs at your premises.
How many staff rely on the connection? Under 15 staff using standard cloud apps — NBN Business is almost certainly sufficient. Over 30 staff, or a team where the connection is a production tool rather than a utility, the calculus shifts toward Enterprise Ethernet.
What is your tolerance for downtime? Could your team function at reduced capacity for two to four hours without severe consequences? If yes, best-effort NBN is a reasonable choice. If a two-hour outage triggers client escalations, financial loss, or an SLA breach with your own customers, you need a guaranteed restoration commitment.
How important is upload speed? If your primary internet usage is downloading content from cloud apps, asymmetrical NBN speeds will serve you well. If you are running video conferencing across multiple rooms simultaneously, hosting applications, or managing a phone system with 20 or more concurrent VoIP calls, symmetrical speeds matter. See our article on what internet speed a business phone system needs for specific bandwidth guidance.
Are you hosting anything? If you host internal servers, private cloud environments, CCTV streams, or any application that external users access — upload speed and dedicated infrastructure become essential. Shared NBN is not designed to reliably serve inbound traffic at scale.
Do you need BGP routing or advanced networking? Multi-site businesses that need to control how traffic is routed between their HQ and branches, or businesses running their own IP ranges, will need Enterprise Ethernet's routing capabilities. NBN Business does not support BGP.
Fixed Wireless: The Third Option Worth Knowing About
There is a third product that fits differently from both options above: Pickle's Fixed Wireless Gen 3.
At $85 per month (ex GST) with 300 GB of data and a public IP address backed by Pickle's DDNS server, Fixed Wireless is not a replacement for either NBN Business or Enterprise Ethernet as a primary connection. Its strength is as a backup WAN.
Paired with your primary connection — whether that is NBN Business or Enterprise Ethernet — Fixed Wireless gives your router a completely independent failover path that runs on a separate network technology. If your primary fibre connection goes down, Fixed Wireless keeps your business online automatically. For call centres, financial businesses, and any site where continuous connectivity is critical, Fixed Wireless as a backup is a cost-effective insurance policy.
For remote or regional premises where NBN access is limited or unavailable, Fixed Wireless can also serve as the primary connection. Read our guide on 4G failover and backup internet for Australian businesses for a deeper look at backup WAN design.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I get Enterprise Ethernet at the same address as my NBN connection?
A: Yes, in most cases. Enterprise Ethernet is a separate dedicated fibre circuit that does not depend on NBN Co infrastructure. Whether Enterprise Ethernet can be provisioned at your specific address depends on carrier network availability — Pickle can confirm this at qualification. Some businesses run both: Enterprise Ethernet as the primary connection with NBN Business or Fixed Wireless as the failover.
Q: Is NBN Business internet actually different from residential NBN?
A: Yes — business NBN plans differ from residential plans in a few important ways. Pickle's Business Broadband includes a static IP address as standard, which residential plans do not. Business plans are also supported during business hours for fault restoration, whereas residential plans have no comparable priority. The underlying NBN access technology is the same shared infrastructure, but the service wrapping and support arrangements are purpose-built for business use.
Q: What does a "guaranteed SLA" actually mean in practice?
A: A guaranteed SLA is a contractual commitment from Pickle and the carrier specifying how quickly a fault will be responded to and restored. For example, a four-hour response time means a technician is assigned and actively working on your fault within four hours of it being logged. If those commitments are not met, the contract provides for remedies. It is the difference between "we will fix it as soon as we can" and "we commit to fixing it within this window."
Q: Does upload speed really matter for a typical office?
A: For an office using email, cloud documents, and occasional video calls, asymmetrical NBN speeds are generally fine. Upload speed becomes a genuine operational issue when you have a high volume of concurrent VoIP calls, are hosting any services that external parties access, running large file transfers regularly, or running video conferencing across multiple rooms simultaneously. If any of those apply, symmetrical Enterprise Ethernet speeds make a measurable difference.
Q: How much more does Enterprise Ethernet cost than NBN Business?
A: Enterprise Ethernet carries a meaningfully higher monthly cost than Business Broadband, reflecting the dedicated fibre infrastructure and guaranteed SLA. The exact pricing depends on the speed tier, your premises location, and installation requirements. Pickle's team will provide a specific quote after confirming your address and requirements. The more useful question to ask is what an hour of internet downtime costs your business — that number usually makes the price comparison straightforward.
Talk to Pickle About the Right Connection for Your Business
NBN Business Broadband and Enterprise Ethernet are both strong products — the right one depends entirely on your business's tolerance for downtime, your upload requirements, your headcount, and whether you are hosting anything that cannot afford interruption.
Pickle's team will assess your address, understand your operations, and recommend the connection — and the backup plan — that matches your actual risk profile. We also help businesses review their broader managed IT setup to make sure connectivity is not the only gap.
Call 1300 688 588 or email [email protected] to get started.