This was posted 2 years 4 months 27 days ago, and might be an out-dated deal.

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5G Home Broadband (Unlimited Data, Up to 50Mbps) $59.99 Per Month + 1 Month Free @ Internode / Westnet

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The future of the Internet has arrived with our 5G network rolling out to select parts of major cities. Internode 5G Home Broadband is a great-value alternative to the NBN. Try 5G for yourself, free for one month.^

Westnet
iinet

Techy types should be aware that 5G Home Broadband uses CG-NAT. Carrier-grade NAT (Network Address Translation) is a type of network that assigns services with a private IP address, instead of a dynamic public IP address. Our network will then translate that private address into a public address. This means that the following items (which depend on internal NAT) will not work on Home Broadband:

  • Port forwarding
  • Hosting web, email or file servers internally
  • Smart Home systems (e.g. accessing security camera footage remotely, home automation and printers)
  • Remote Access (i.e. accessing your home computer or devices from another location)

If you need any of these items in your home setup, 5G Home Broadband won’t be the right fit for you.

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closed Comments

  • +3

    GG nbn

    • +20

      You'd be crazy to game on mobile internet

      • My Telstra 5G speed tests with a 12-25ms ping on my iPhone, not sure how consistent that would be if gaming and slower than my 4ms Superloop FTTP ping. However a good start for 5G. Also I get speeds from 140mbps to 1100mbps on speedtest.net. Insanely fast.

        • +2

          packet loss

        • +2

          Telstra 5G on your iPhone is not the same as Telstra 5G Home broadband solution.

          Similarly Vodafone 5G on your iPhone is also not the same as their various brands of the Vodafone/TPG/iinet 5G broadband at home. That being said, I was able to get really good speeds on my Vodafone 5G at Home connection but there was both 20ms latency, and just random stability issues.

        • 25ms, that's a shocker. No better than 4G pings which I usually see around 14 to 17ms on.
          Wireless is very inconsistent, one of the big problems with it.

      • +1

        Ignorant comment. Have gamed on 3G and 4G in a bunch of regional areas, on voda, Optus and Telstra over the last 10+ years. Experience varies but it’s mostly quite playable. That’s just using an average mobile phone as a hotspot.

        Mobile broadband can provide a more consistent experience. Instead of just constantly pinging multiple mobile towers for the best connection, a mobile broadband router can be tethered to a single tower. Theoretically, and in my experience using Optus mobile broadband, this gives a more consistent gaming experience due to more stable ping.

        If you are into competitive gaming, then sure you should probably pay for an FTTP connection to go with your high refresh rate display, top tier GPU and pro spec gaming gear. You’ll probably still blame teammates and lag for your shitty K/D ratio though.

        • i have used mobile broadband in a pinch to avoid abandoning. maybe it's my phone but i think there's a reason pro gamers don't use mobile internet (to my knowledge). anyway you obviously know way more than me

        • I'm sure it's playable, but I wouldn't be playing competitively as I find on Vodafone 5G, it would have random stuttering/lag with latency spiking up throughout the day. I conveniently live in direct line of sight with no obstructions to the Telstra/Optus/Voda 5G tower and have seen pretty big fluctuations in latency - eg Vodafone might get 18ms for most of the speed test, but with the newer speedtest.net app showing latency throughout the test, it sometimes spikes up to the 200-300ms. Telstra 5G does alot better though and doesn't tend to fluctuate as much as it hovers around the 11ms mark for the whole way. Maybe it's just the different networks.

      • I am on Optus home 5G plan and my ping is between 20 - 25ms when I play Xbox. I am not a gamer, so can't comment on how good this is. But it's perfectly fine for my needs and I'd imagine most people will be happy with this.

        This is also through wifi and not on a wired connection.

    • -1

      Yup, 40-60Mbps 5G in my area… GG indeed…

      • +13

        It's not about speed It's about latency.

        • +1

          I wasn't responding to belongsonforums… I was responding to the guy GGing nbn…

  • That is a pretty awesome plan. I currently pay $50/mth / 500GB monthly data / No lock-in / Maximum speed 20/20Mbps / Total min $50 | Data cost $0.10/GB | Excess data $10/GB auto-recharge and this is a nice step up for unlimited and faster speeds on wireless home broadband.

    • +5

      Notice these are MAXIMUM speeds advertised whereas ACCC mandated standard advertising for nbn products is peak-hour typical speeds!!

      • I am not too fussed with the advertised rate as it is wireless NBN and there are so many environmental variables compared to fixed line that can affect connection speeds.

        Generally speeds have been near peak advertised rates which has been great considering the router is several years old, placed three meters from the nearest window. It helps that Telstra is the underlying carrier (prior, Optus connection speeds was quite all over the place).

      • +4

        I think the ACCC standards are applicable to NBN connections, not mobile network products.

  • +4

    Internode support can really suck these days.
    Ive had an open issue for weeks now and nothings been actioned.

  • +4

    I’d expect these issues to be somewhat resolved now but I had a month trial of 5G in mid-2020 and it never held up to significant load.
    Had line of sight to 5G tower and distance is about 400m and would get 200-500mbps in daytime hours and then have severe throttling down to 12-25 during the peak hours.
    Came back to NBN (AussieBB) and have reliable 40mbps minimum at all hours

    • Still better than my nbn. 12-20mbps is a great day. Currently sitting on 6 with an open ticket. As usual nothing ever happens.

      • Do you have a shit ISP that is oversubscribed?

        • +1

          Nah with ABB. More related to FTTN and distance from exchange.

  • +5

    Where is this actually available? is there a map?
    Not at my address in Sydney, no friends' addresses in other Sydney suburbs, or in Newcastle

    • Do you and your friends have 5G access from home? My suburb doesn't have 5G at all.

      This nperf map seems to correlate with the people I know that currently have 5G broadband in Sydney: https://www.nperf.com/en/map/5g. I don't know if you need "strong" signal to be eligible or within 150m of a tower etc

      • Probably vodafone network.

      • That’s a cool map. Really shows that you need to be close to a main road, train line or shopping strip to have access to 5G. At least that’s the case around me.

        • +1

          I guess it cool and a nice way to guesstimate if you’ll have 5G but it’s defs not accurate.
          My house doesn’t show any 5G on the map yet I’ve connected to and had 5G on the premises.

          I can see 5G on 2 ‘mainish’ roads (one main to the south & a much smaller suburban road to the west) near me that protrude from a central point. My house is within the bounds of a circle drawn from both their end points and thus the end points show the max radius of my nearby 5G tower. Give theirs no substantial hill in that radius, I’d expect everyone in a 750m radius to have 5G (at varying strengths based on distance and line of sight)

    • +1

      0.1 % of australia, in areas of iinet top managenment

  • +8

    I can’t understand how this is any good unless you have issues with your NBN connection.
    Otherwise, better speeds and more stable connection with nbn can be had for similar prices if not less.

    • +13

      I suspect it's aimed at NBN-FW & FTTN customers. If you live outside large cities NBN can be terrible.

      My oldies lose their connection for days every month. ABB do their dance, flick it to NBN who eventually send out a tech who says the wiring in the street needs replacing but they won't spend the coin. Local MP chats with NBN who says they're looking at upgrading the network in the future… 4yrs later……

      Thanks Tony, Malcolm, ScoMo, Michael & Barnaby, you've saved the country from that Labor NBN rollout, from fibre to the home to a more expensive mess to the home, but only sometimes.

      • I’m on fixed wireless in East Gippsland, but alas have no 5G either.

        • +1

          Yeah, I just did a search, of course I'm a goose and it's only in the strong 5G area's (I thought it might work with 4g on 5g fringe). Most of these places already have decent NBN connections.

          Funny I can't even get Telstra 5g internet, but I get a 5g signal on my phone

    • +2

      I can’t understand how this is any good unless you have issues with your NBN connection.

      Some of us can't get NBN, for example it isn't available at my inner-city Brisbane address. NBN won't touch my area, as it is "already served" by an "alternative fiber provider". Look up "South Brisbane exchange area" for details. It used to be a Telstra monopoly area, but they were required to sell it, and the new provider hasn't dropped the prices at all. Minimum cost is $79.95/month, and much of the area has a maximum speed of 30Mbps due to "technical limitations".

      Even more annoying is that I watched techs install the green NBN cable in the pit on my footpath. But it merely traverses my area, it isn't available to connect to without an "NBN extension" and the associated high costs.

      So I'm currently on 4G home internet at $59.99/month, as 5G isn't available yet at my address.

      So much for our "National" Broadband Network.

      • +1

        From my understanding, the Opticomm transition is only starting to happen, so you may not be able to get anything yet, but check again in a few months.
        The offers should be better than what Telstra offered, but most ISPs seem to charge a premium for Opticomm over NBN.

        5G might be able to give better speeds than Opticomm's FTTP at equivalent prices, but I'm hoping the latter is more reliable.

        • I can see the Uniti Wireless website is offering "pre-order for November 22" some NBN-looking plans, starting at $69.95 for 25/5 with unlimited data.

          It's slightly better, but 25/5 is $55/month (ongoing rate) elsewhere. And it looks like they're just copying the NBN speeds, it doesn't look like it will be an NBN connection.

          • +1

            @Russ: Yeah, this is Opticomm not NBN. ISPs which resell Opticomm tend to charge $5-10 more than equivalent NBN plans unfortunately :(

            Exetel are doing 25/5 unlimited for $60/month over Opticomm: https://exetel.com.au/broadband/fibre
            For other ISPs, here's a list: https://www.opticomm.com.au/service-providers/

            You can see when your rollout occurs at https://online.telco.opticomm.com.au/

            I also got sick of the Telstra monopoly here and went with Optus 4G - it's just not the most reliable though.

            • +1

              @Yumi: Thanks so much for that! The only information that was posted out to people in the area was that Uniti Wireless had taken over the network from Telstra, nothing else. I didn't know it was becoming an Opticomm area.

              Exetel are doing 25/5 unlimited for $60/month over Opticomm

              That's a much better price, but I've been stung by Exetel previously. Fortunately I found Leaptel have the same price, thanks to the link you provided.

              I'll start spreading the word amongst the neighbours, I'm sure the info will be warmly received. Thanks again!

              • +1

                @Russ: No worries. Yeah information (and support in general) about this area has been pretty poor unfortunately.

                I'm not sure what the relationship between Opticomm and Uniti is exactly. Being sold to Uniti is correct I think, but Opticomm provide the network?

                Anyway, this article goes into more detail: https://westender.com.au/transition-to-opticomm-fttp-network…

                • +1

                  @Yumi: I agree, it's all very vague. To use a real-estate analogy, it sounds like Uniti are the "landlord" of the network, which is being "leased" to Opticomm, who are then "sub-letting" it to the ISPs.

    • It's well suited to renters who need a connection very quickly (ie not waiting for NBN installation) and don't want to commit to a contract.

  • +4

    You can get 5g 100mpbs plan for $65/pm from TPG

    • +6

      I'm pretty TPG and Internode have been the same company for years anyway. iiNet bought Internode and then TPG bought iiNet. It's just a different branding presentation.

      • +1

        correct, they still operate as independent entities (brands) but they are essentially all TPG along with AAPT and few other business oriented ISP's.

  • +1

    NBN was not available at my address, so i had to go for only option, optus 5g. When running, it is all good 170-180mbps. But gets disconnected a lot. Says 4g backup but that is not enough. 5-7mbps, you cant even open google.com

    • +2

      5-7mbps is plenty fast enough to open google. It’s enough to do 1080p streaming

      • +3

        Yeah, probably huge pack loss, contention stand-off, and jitter which causes more issues than the lower (but should still be usable) bandwidth.

  • +1

    Checked for 18 different addresses including greater melb, south east, west and port melb. Not available at any of those.

  • +1

    I have the 100Mbps plan but its not speed limited. Get about 200Mbps down and 20 up.

  • If I travel with it, I’ll have problems?

    • Yes, meant for a fixed address

  • "The non-return fee is calculated as $17 multiplied by months remaining in the first 36 months."

    So after 6 months if you end it, that's $510 IF you don't return the modem. Given there is little to no set up required (compared with a physical connection), that's steep, must be a pretty damn high quality modem/router.

  • I signed up to Vodafone 5g but the speed is no good at my address, so swapping to Telstra 5g and seeing how that is.

  • -1

    but is 5G going to beam in to my brain and give me covid, all that EMF will fry my brain, staying safe with wired connection for now

    • +1

      Yeah it will give you covid so YOU definitely stay away.

    • It's more superman, better strength, faster speed, and burning laser vision

    • +2

      I'm still pissed that my vaccination hasn't improved my 5g reception. Bloody false advertising by all these antivaxers. I keep trying to get them to explain why but most of the ones I call are too sick or dead and thus can't discuss it!

    • +1

      hilarious looking at the people who took your joke seriously

      • sometimes i get worried to sir

  • If you download torrent movies,web series mobile internet is terrible. ( personal experience with 5G Vodafone home plan) returned after 5 days. Otherwise better than NBN

    • You picked the shittiest plan, don't complain.

      Change DNS and getting much higher speeds on Telstra 5G - (profanity) copyright holders

      • Not always the plan that's the issue, it could be 4G/5G tower. Sometimes on my 4G internet connection is killed downloading something even if i am getting 20 mbps.

  • +2

    Another 5g service you cant get in bumf&ck, or other 99.9% of the country….
    Groundhog day again.

    • Considering that 5G antennas are super low-range (ie you need a lot of them to achieve reasonable coverage), is that a suprise?

  • I had NBN fttn with speeds of around 25mbps. I switched to telstra 5g fixed wireless and now get 600mbps+. Definitely worth getting if you use fttn

    • +1

      This one is limited at 50 mbps though (or 100).

      • 100 plan has no download limit, only upload. I am getting 200+ down.

  • The government should ban 5g development for home use. At this sort of pricing for 5g, it's going to make nbn hard to compete. The whole point of nbn was that everyone in the country has to be connected onto it no matter what old tech you were on.

    • +2

      Competition is good for everyone. Australian Tax Payers have been ripped off by the government thanks to the liberal government trying cut corners when rolling out the NBN. We are now paying for there mistakes and that's why the wholesale prices are ludicrous and private companies are looking at alternatives.

      • -1

        Competition is good for everyone.

        No, lots of things are better when done by the government as the single provider. Name me any of the government things that were privatised, where the end result has been better overall for the consumer.

        It's a Liberal mantra that competition makes everything better, it isn't always true. It often means you are just paying more for multiple CEOs and management boards, and advertising which wasn't needed when the government was the monopoly provider.

        • +1

          Yeah the NBN would have been great if it was done properly 🙄

          5G might be a good or better option for some people. I've recommended it to my parents. Fortunately I have FTTP

      • How is more competition good when more people are given the option to get out of using NBN? The less people that must use NBN for their internet means less revenue for them. To counter that, NBN will need to increase pricing for everyone again. This is all about economies of scale.
        This is exactly why 5g is so bad, it provides competition to our fixed internet solutions whereas 4g wireless speeds never used to clash with fixed internet speeds.

        • NBN sucks as someone on FTTN, I don't care, I need good internet access so 5G is good for me. Telstra 5G can download at 500+Mbps and upload at 50+Mbps, NBN can only offer these speeds on FTTP or some HFC and at more than twice the price as 5G? Why because government wants NBN to make a profit. Their logic is flawed, write it off as a service that government provides that doesn't need to make profit and actually offer competitive plans for a change.

          Take a look at NZ, you can get 1000Mbps/400Mbps plans for around $99-110 NZD almost anywhere except for super rural. Don't even get me started on 2Gbps, 4Gbps or 8Gbps (both up and down) plans available for consumers cheaper than NBN's 1000/400 plan.

    • Gigabit NBN puts a good argument to that. Way better route to go if you can get it.

  • Title should outlay compromise and data amount!

  • Anyone know what modem it is? And do they pay the return shipping?

  • +1

    PIng is too shit - save your pennies I hear 6g is coming out next year.

  • Any good 5G home broadband that uses Telstra? But isn't Telstra? Too damn expensive imho.

  • +1

    Hopefully no one getting this expects to game online as you might have issues due to CGNAT. I couldn't even connect to the online game I was playing at the time when ABB introduced CGNAT. Maybe some games work?

  • Have you seen this on YouTube
    https://youtu.be/AvcAovqG5Kk

    Don't rush out to get 5G yet

    • +1

      Sorry, that YouTube clip is misleading.

      The successive 4G/5G/6G generations got faster mainly because of two factors:

      • The phone companies bought more radio frequencies from the government.
      • The cell sizes were made smaller in areas that experienced congestion.

      Between 0G and 3G there was a modest boost from the transmission technology, but it's diminishing returns after that. I don't have exact figures, but 4G achieved about 90% of the theoretical maximum transmission efficiency, and 5G gets about 94%.

      The main limitation now to sending lots of data to lots of people simultaneously, is the "bandwidth" (number of frequencies) available. I have previously explained this, post here: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/5790678/redir

      The point is, 5G/6G/7G can't ever achieve enough data throughput to serve everyone, or even a substantial proportion of the population, in a densely-populated area. Not unless the cells become really small, like one cell per house or couple of houses. And then, strangely enough, that looks pretty much the same as the NBN and each house having a WiFi access point. So only if 6G or 7G looks like the NBN, will it be able to seriously compete with the NBN.

  • There may be a way around this but as a general warning, don't go for a CGNAT carrier if you use your Plex server externally.

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