You've seen Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull blame Labor for the NBN "train wreck". And you've seen former prime minister Kevin Rudd hit back.

But all you want to know is whether you should get it.

Rather than explaining what the NBN is, we thought we'd go through the things you'd probably use it for and give you a sense of whether the improvements would make it worth it to you.

Note: for this article, we're treating a typical ADSL2+ download speed as 5-15Mbps (megabits per second), and a typical NBN speed as 25-50Mbps.

That's only a rough guide, though, and the speeds you'll actually get could vary greatly, so make sure you read the fine print of whatever service you're considering. Also, consider how many people and devices will be sharing your internet service — the bigger the number, the slower the service.

And finally, this article is aimed at ordinary consumers — if you're a business owner, or power user, or rely on high speeds to work from home, you already know whether you need the NBN.

Sending emails and doing your internet banking

You don't need the NBN for this. Even dial-up would probably do the job.

Using Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat

Even though social media apps are using more and more data, especially as they shift to video, they're generally still designed to work with slower speeds and limited data allowances, so you shouldn't have any trouble with ADSL2+.

Watching Netflix and YouTube

Ultimately, it depends on how bothered you are about quality.

Services like Netflix scale the quality to your internet speed. So, you might be able to watch House of Cards without any buffering interruptions using your current ADSL2+ service, but that doesn't mean it couldn't look better.

That's especially true if you have an Ultra HD TV capable of streaming 4K video. However, you should be aware that you can only stream 4K video on Netflix if you have the premium subscription which costs $17.99 a month. If you've only got the basic $9.99 subscription, SD quality is the best you can get anyway.

Netflix and YouTube also allow you to download video to your phone or tablet to watch when you're offline — for instance, on your commute to work or on an overseas holiday.

Obviously, we're talking about big files — an hour-long episode of Narcos in SD is about 230 megabytes, while the HD version is about 340 megabytes. So the NBN will make the wait shorter.

Uploading photos and video to the cloud

If you constantly have your phone or camera pointed at your child or cat, and you hate having to wait for photos and videos to upload so they're stored online on Dropbox or Google Drive, this might influence your decision about whether to get the NBN.

With ADSL2+, you'd be lucky to have an upload speed of 1Mbps — and even then, that's a wait of 2.5 hours to upload a 1GB video. Whereas many NBN plans offer upload speeds of between 5Mbps and 20Mbps.

But, if you're happy for your photos and videos to upload overnight while you're sleeping, perhaps this isn't a deal breaker.

Talking to your overseas rellies (or even a doctor) on Skype

This too relies on upload speeds. For a basic voice call with one person, you'd get away with an upload speed of just 100kbps — you shouldn't have trouble doing this with ADSL2+.

But video calling is where things get a bit more intensive. If you want a decent quality, you'll need an upload speed of 500kbps, and if you want HD, you'll need at least 1.5Mbps.

Working from home

It depends on your job, but if it's just common tasks like responding to emails and working on shared Google Drive or Microsoft Office spreadsheets and documents, those aren't particularly data-intensive.

But if you're going to be on group video calls, you may want better speeds.

With Skype, your required upload speed doesn't change as more and more people are added to the video call. But the required download speed does (for three people, you'll need 2Mbps; for seven people or more, you'll need 8Mbps).

Playing and downloading video games

If you're a gamer, the main difference the NBN makes is for multiplayer.

At worst, slow speeds and poor connections can mean you're kicked out of an online game of Destiny 2 or FIFA 18 and have your kill-death/win-loss ratio suffer as a result.

Even if a game is playable on ADSL2+, you might still get a smoother experience with better speeds. But a bigger impact on multiplayer performance is the quality of the connection — if you experience high latency, you'll have poor performance. Fibre connections will generally be better than cable connections.

File sizes are another consideration. If you want to download Assassin's Creed Origins on PS4 when it comes out later this week, you could have a long wait on your hands considering it's 44.59GB.

And even if you buy the game on disc, there's a 1.3 GB day-one patch that you'll still need to download.

So, if you don't want to be staring at the TV waiting to be able to play a new release, maybe the NBN would be worth it for you.

Be aware, eventually you probably won't have a choice

NBN Co says once your area is ready for service, you will generally have 18 months to move across. The majority of existing internet services will be disconnected.

This article was updated on October 27 to remove a reference to mobile speeds being slow (this often isn't the case) and include a reference to the problem of latency in the discussion of multiplayer gaming.