If you have an NBN connection box, place your Optus NBN modem near enough to that networking device to connect via an Ethernet cable. You want to position it near a power outlet, away from potentially interfering electrical devices and, ideally, in a spacious area that’s central in the home to best maximise WiFi coverage. Once the Optus NBN modem arrives, placement is important. This gives you less device choice, sure, but this way you can hang a lot of the modem setup process on the NBN provider, whose customer support and tech support team will likely know the ins and outs of the device.To get prepped for your setting up any of the NBN modems provided by Optus, download the My Optus app for guided installation. If you want the least-painful experience possible, then go with the modem provided by your NBN provider. Here are some handy tips, broken up by what you might be most interested in. How do I buy the right modem?īuying the right modem doesn’t have to be a confusing process. If you’re considering a high-bandwidth activity like wireless VR gameplay, then it might be worth considering a more expensive modem. My old modem was incapable of consistent wireless VR gameplay, but switching to the much more powerful mesh modem made this work fine. Also, keep in mind that Ethernet speeds are largely dependent on your Ethernet cable (modern CAT5e and CAT6 cables can handle speeds of up to 1,000Mbps).Ī practical example I can give of this happened to me in 2022, when I reviewed the Eero Pro 6. These speeds might be observable on a local area network and might be observable if you’re on an NBN 1000 plan, but it’d be difficult to observe this speed difference during common daily use. Regardless, your speed will always be throttled by your NBN plan. Conversely, the most expensive modem on offer from the tech retailer (the ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AX11000) offers 5Ghz Wi-Fi speeds of up to 11,000Mbps.Īdditionally, more expensive modems usually mean more channels, which do translate to faster speeds, as noted by Hitron. Most modems you can buy from Amazon or JB Hi-Fi will be able to achieve the maximum speeds available from most NBN providers, however, speeds faster than NBN 250 (so, faster than 250Mbps) are where maximum speeds become less important.įor example, the cheapest modem available on the JB Hi-Fi website (the Asus AC1500 Dual Band Wi-Fi Router) can achieve a 5Ghz Wi-Fi speed of up to 867Mbps, indicating the maximum theoretical speed that it can supply wirelessly. It’s more complicated than simply saying “expensive modems mean faster speeds”. This could include mesh capability, more Ethernet ports, faster Wi-Fi speeds, better user interfaces or even more advanced features like an included gaming VPN (GPN, if you will), but one of the more common misconceptions is that a more expensive modem means a greater internet speed. Some modems are more expensive because they offer more features than standard modems. As such, we’re going to be referring to it this way, just to avoid confusion. The internet-providing box in the home is typically referred to as a “ modem” in Australia, when in reality it’s likely a modem-router (a decade or so ago, it wasn’t uncommon to have separate modem and router devices in Australia). We’re going to be using the term “modem” and “modem-router” interchangeably in this article. In basic terms, a modem provides your home with internet access, whereas a router routes Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections to your home. It turns out that buying the most expensive modem-router on offer doesn’t always mean getting a better experience than what you’re currently using. It’s easy to completely do away with modem-router concerns in Australia when you can get a modem as a part of your NBN plan, but should you consider swapping it out for a different one? Do you really need an expensive modem-router?
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