MWeb LTE vs fibre: which one is right for your home?

Fibre is a physical cable run to your home. LTE is wireless - a router picks up a mobile signal and shares it over WiFi. That single distinction drives everything else: cost, speed, how steady it feels at 8pm, and whether "uncapped" really means uncapped.

MWeb sells both, so you're not choosing between providers, just between technologies. The full plan detail sits on our MWeb fibre and MWeb LTE pages; this guide is about which one fits your situation.

On fibre, MWeb's uncapped lines are exactly that - no cap, no fair-use throttling, no shaping against streaming or gaming. On LTE, "uncapped" comes with a Fair Use Policy. You get a generous slice of data at full speed each month, then the line steps down to a slower speed for whatever's left.

As an example, MWeb's published LTE terms give the 30 Mbps plan its first 600GB at full speed, then 4 Mbps, then 2 Mbps to month-end. That's plenty for most homes, but it isn't the same promise as fibre. If you're a heavy streamer or you run a big household, fibre's no-asterisk uncapped is the safer bet.

Per gigabyte, fibre is cheaper - you're paying for a dedicated line, not airtime-style data. Fibre also delivers its rated speed far more consistently, because it isn't sharing a mobile tower with everyone else in the suburb or dropping in a thunderstorm.

LTE's advantage isn't performance, it's availability and convenience. There's nothing to install in the wall, so you can be online the day the router arrives - which is the whole point when fibre hasn't reached you. Our deeper fibre vs LTE vs 5G guide has the side-by-side on speeds and latency.

• No fibre on your street. Real for many homes outside the dense metros. LTE bridges the gap until a network trenches your road.
• Backup. A small LTE plan behind your fibre keeps the house online through a cable cut or area outage - handy if you work from home.
• Short stays and rentals. No trenching, no landlord sign-off, and you take the router with you.

Check what's live before you decide - if fibre is an option, the maths almost always favours it. Our MWeb coverage page shows the networks at your address.

Default to fibre. Reach for MWeb LTE when fibre isn't there yet, or when you want a cheap second line as a safety net. Because both are month-to-month with a free-to-use router, starting on LTE costs you nothing in flexibility - you can switch the day fibre lands on your street.