Crappy NBN modems – the lessons we learned from our free advice

We learned many things about crappy NBN Modems, but most of all that the NBN Reseller does not give a rats about if its modem will work in your home.

We helped over 200 readers by asking them to send in their home floor plan and answer a few basic questions. You can read about what we needed to know at Free NBN Speed upgrade: Modem mayhem is just a scare tactic to sell more. The offer ends on 30 September because we need to do real work! But it shows you what information you must take to the router reseller to get what works, not what makes them the most money.

I was gobsmacked at how long readers had been putting up with their existing Wi-Fi and how little of it was FTTP or HFC 500/50 compatible. So, this is a quick summary of some of the lessons.

Worst problem: Modem/router/mesh retailers, including NBN resellers, haven’t got a clue

In every case where a reader had asked their retailer or NBN reseller what to buy, they were given the wrong information. It was universal across Officeworks (which owns Geeks2U and should know better), JB Hi-Fi (sells what makes them the most profit), Good Guys (ditto), Harvey Norman (at least they care), Bing Lee and more.

Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone/iiNet only sell their modems (which we define as crappy), and even Aussie Broadband recommended a cheap Netcomm NF20 Mesh or similar. It is good to see Aussie now offers Eero Pro Wi-Fi 7 BE10800 tri-band (3-pack $1199) and Eero Wi-Fi 7 BE5000 dual-band (3-pack $649.99), but these are not great routers – you can do far better for less.

And no one asks for your floor plan to actually work out what you need.

Second worst problem – Telstra, Optus and Vodafone (and a few more)

Telcos want to sell and forget, so their modems are ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. Their house modems, without fail, are cheap and woeful. Read Telstra Smart Modem 4 – still a crappy NBN modem. Here is why (update).

Telstra locks you in with a Bigpond email address, and yes, it’s tough to change if you have used that for years. Yet when TPG and its sub-brands decided not to provide email anymore, users survived. Read The Messaging Company whacks TPG/iiNet/Internode/Westnet free email users. Most set up a free Gmail or Outlook account and slowly move accounts to that.

Telstra (and some NBN resellers) also lock you in if you have a landline with them. It uses a proprietary SIP that only its modems can use. But you can easily transfer (port) the number to any other industry-standard VoIP provider like Aussie Broadband. All it requires is an ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter), which may be part of your old non-Telstra modem/router or can be attached to an Ethernet port on a router. A simple ATA costs <$100 for the Grandstream HT802 2-Port FXS ATA VoIP Adapter.

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone do have one small plus. Their modems have 4/5G fallback if NBN is down. Telstra caps this at 25/5 Mbps, which is barely enough to do email. If you must have 4/5G broadband, there are better and faster Wi-Fi Tri-band BE9300 mesh routers like this.

And finally, costs. Telstra 500/50 NBN is $113 a month (after the first six months) and increases every year by at least CPI. Aussie is $95 per month ($85 for the first six months), and you may find even cheaper elsewhere, especially if you bundle phone and mobile.

Why the hesitancy to upgrade from FTTN or FTTC to FTTP?

In general, if FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) is in your street, you should take advantage of the limited-time free upgrade offer. This gives you a base speed of 500/50Mbps, and yes, it makes your monthly fee closer to $100. Check your address eligibility here.

There are several important reasons to get the upgrade.

• It is so much more reliable – almost no dropouts and faster speeds.
• More services are switching to internet delivery. For example, Foxtel won’t install a satellite dish if it can deliver over FTTP. Free-to-air TV’s days via an antenna have a sunset.
• Wi-Fi calling is now the only way to make a call if you live in a low mobile signal area. This means blackspots and rural or remote areas that can get Broadband over satellite, Skylink or FTTP.
• If you stick to FTTN or FTTC and fibre is in the street, there is no obligation for NBN to fix it, ever. One reader had to wait four months to get the free upgrade, all the while their FTTN was not working. Read NBN FTTN users – no responsibility for speed or reliability
• FTTN and FTTC plans are likely to get more expensive compared to FTTP/HFC.
• The free offer is time-limited. If you miss out, you could be looking at costs from $250 to several hundred dollars, depending on the ease of getting fibre to your home.

Note for strata properties: NBN charges to upgrade strata developments like multi-story apartments, townhouses and flats on a common land title. It will send out a crew to quote, and prices range from $275 per lot for an easy install to a few thousand dollars for harder installs.

Router and satellite placement are also critical

The Wi-Fi 5 GHz signal strength drops about 50% when passing through walls, cupboards, doors, windows and upstairs floors.

Most had the modem/router against an outside corner wall, ergo. 50-75% of the signal is wasted outside. If you can get the router to the middle of the home, you may not need as powerful a replacement.

Read Fix Wi-Fi blackspots fast and often at no cost

The NBN FTTC and HFC termination box is usually in the worst place

NBN will place the external box at the point closest to the fibre pit on the footpath. It then drills through the wall to place a connection box inside. This is often in the garage or another front-of-house room.

You can ask them ‘politely’ to run the fibre in conduit up to about 6 metres from where they want to place it. If you are lucky, that may be towards the centre of the home.

Remember, Wi-Fi 2.4 and 5GHz generally have a circular transmission distance of 20/10 meters, and speeds drop off enormously as you move toward the edge of the circle.

Consider that most homes are around 20 metres deep and 10-15 metres wide (and some have a second story), so a crappy modem/router may only cover less than 30% of that area.

Rule: Do not believe so-called modem/router coverage areas. Divide by at least three to get to reality.

Very few homes have Ethernet cabling

Ethernet makes it easy to distribute the internet (front and backhaul) to the router and any mesh satellites, as they don’t use Wi-Fi backhaul.

In many cases, particularly large or double-story homes, we have recommended that they get an electrician to quote on placing Ethernet RJ45 points at recommended locations.

Alternatively, a Powerline adapter can inject the internet into the power lines, and you can use another adapter to get Ethernet (up to 1000/1000Mbps) at any power point in the home, garage or shed. Powerline is generally reliable, but blackouts and surges can knock it offline and require an occasional ‘reboot’ to get it back.

Wi-Fi range (5GHz front and backhaul)

Older routers don’t have the signal strength to transmit the full speed more than a few metres.

There are two golden rules:

1. If you can use Ethernet backhaul, you can use a Wi-Fi 7 BE5000 dual-band router, as it does not lose half of its 5 GHz bandwidth to backhaul.
2. If you can’t use Ethernet backhaul, you need Wi-Fi 7 tri-band BE11000 or more, as half the 5 GHz band for backhaul, but still have enough left (about 2000Mbps) for device use.

Wi-Fi hogs need Wi-Fi 7 and Ethernet

TVs, Xbox, PlayStation and set-top boxes like Foxtel or Fetch can consume 25-50MBps streaming 4K TV. A direct connection to an Ethernet port to the router or Ethernet-connected satellite is recommended, as it frees up valuable Wi-Fi bandwidth.

Don’t forget outside the house

More homes are installing Wi-Fi cameras, heat pumps, solar panels and batteries. All these need strong Wi-Fi.

And some want Wi-Fi around the pool for speakers, and general use of smartphones and tablets. More are installing outdoor kitchens and alfresco entertainment areas that need Wi-Fi.

Modem/router versus mesh router and single router

The crappy NBN modem routers can take a signal from FTTC, FTTN, FTTP and HFC connections. Without fail, they lack the CPU power and RAM to effectively ‘route’ the internet to Ethernet ports and via Wi-Fi. They time/slice their processing power, and under load, get buffering, dropouts and slower signals.

Mesh routers (limited to Wi-Fi 7) have far more CPU power and RAM, and can easily handle 500/50Mbps, and some can handle 2.5Gps internet speeds or more. Mesh means the same network name (SSID), and you can roam all over the house as it seamlessly passes you from router to satellite, etc.

We don’t generally recommend a single router unless you can place it in the centre of the action and all devices are within that 10 metre transmission circle. It is better to spend a little more on a mesh router and add satellites later if needed.

4/5G modem/router versus NBN broadband.

A few readers had 4 or 5G Broadband services, and when we analysed the actual speeds they were getting, it was appalling. Unless you are beside a transmission tower, inside the home (no external antenna), you can expect:

• 4G speeds 50-150Mbps download and 30 Mbps upload. Typically, 50/15.
• 5G speeds are dependent on whether you can get 5G inside the home (and likely not). If so, you will get up to 300Mbps download and 30 Mbps upload. Not one of our readers was able to get anywhere near these speeds, at best 150/30.

Note: We are not referring to 4/5G fallback, which is capped at 25/5Mbps.

Why Wi-Fi 7?

Wi-Fi 5 AC is well past end-of-life and is dangerously insecure and probably already part of a cybercrime botnet.

Wi-Fi 6 AX and 6E AXE are end-of-life. Many routers will cease to get security patches or firmware updates within a year or so. There is no future proofing. All our comments relate to Wi-Fi 7 unless specified.

Wi-Fi 7 has a 6 GHz band (that you won’t use unless you buy 6E or 7 client devices in the future). It has double the bandwidth to 320 MHz (and soon 2 x 320 MHz), 4096-QAM for 4X higher data density, and Multi-Link Operation (MLO band aggregation) for greater speed and lower latency. Add to that a lot of ‘go-fast’ Wi-Fi 7 features and routers with faster CPUs, more RAM, and more Ethernet ports (usually at least one WAN and two LAN) up to 10Gbps.

Simply put, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E solutions may be a couple of hundred dollars cheaper, but it’s a false economy, knowing what is coming.

Can I use some of my old gear?

Not generally. The exception is that older Deco Wi-Fi 5 and 6 satellites can connect to the newer Deco Wi-Fi 7 routers, and may be handy for use in the shed or at the home’s extremities.

Budget

Most have no idea what getting good internet costs. Most crappy modems are under $300, and the average hip pocket nerve is about $500.

With Ethernet cabling, you can generally get what you need with a mesh router and one or two satellites. Costs around $500-800.

Without Ethernet cabling, relying on Wi-Fi backhaul, you must have a Wi-Fi 7 BE11000 tri-band router, as about half the 5 GHz bandwidth is used for backhaul. Backhaul bandwidth gets even more critical if you Wi-Fi ‘daisy-chain’ e.g., Router > Wi-Fi backhaul > Satellite 1 >Wi-Fi backhaul > Satellite 2.

CyberShack’s view: Crappy NBN modems – the lessons we learned from our free advice

First, those who took our advice (99%) had a 100% success rate. Those that did not – well, they bought cheap and are probably too embarrassed to admit that.

Our advice was to help readers get whole-of-home Wi-Fi where the home is bathed in 500/50Mbps, and you can have multiple heavy users thrashing the system.

It was not about getting Wi-Fi in a one or two-bedroom apartment (crappy modems/routers can do that). We did get many retirees in villages wanting more coverage, especially for external Wi-Fi security cameras, video doorbells and door locks.

Our most common hardware recommendations were:

Budget <$500

Where the budget did not allow it was hard to go past D-Link’s excellent Aquila Pro Wi-Fi 6 AX6000 AI mesh system. It is on run-out at $429.95 (usually $649.95) for a three-pack. It handles up to 2.5GHz WAN and gigabit LAN.

We can’t recommend slower than AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 devices, and D-Link is yet to release its Wi-Fi 7 mesh (coming soon). We recommend D-Link and TP-Link because we know and use their gear.

Good (as long as you have Ethernet or Powerline backhaul)

TP-Link Deco Wi-Fi 7 BE25 BE5000 dual-band. Available in a two or three-pack for $428/598 from Harvey Norman. HN will price-match if you see lower prices.

Better and are fine with Wi-Fi or Ethernet backhaul

TP-Link Deco Wi-Fi 7 BE65 BE11000 tri-band. Available in a two or three-pack for $??/948 from Harvey Norman.

Best for big homes and lots of devices and users, and are fine with Wi-Fi or Ethernet backhaul

TP-Link Deco Wi-Fi 7 BE85 BE22000 tri-band. Available in a two or three-pack for $??/$2998 from Harvey Norman.

Powerline Ethernet over Power

 TP-Link AV2000 2 port gigabit pair. Available for $198 at Harvey Norman. These are inordinately handy to get Ethernet around the home, upstairs and to the shed.