Telstra 5G Home Internet $75/M (1st Y, after: $85)

LAlit on 17/10/2021 - 00:55

Hi everyone,

Interested to know others' idea/experience in replacing home NBN with 5G. I am about to replace my Vodafone nbn25 (mostly 16mbps) and was thinking why not 5G? I have Telstra sim plan giving me ~300mbps (iPhone 8 - 4G) and for my partner ~700mbps (iPhone 12 - 5G); we are based in Ascot, Perth.

I am giving Telstra as example as I've actually experienced the speed and connection quality which is good enough with no outage.

Telstra gives 5G connection with 400G/M (which is more than enough for us) for $75/M 1st Y and then $85/M link. This is very close to most of NBN plans charging ~$70-75/M for 50mbps; e.g. ABB & iiNET. I tried quite a few companies during past couple of years including ABB, Tangerine, Vodafone and all had occasional outages and in case of ABB forcing for upgrading the plan. As a summary, all services were annoying.

Was thinking now that 5G coverage is good enough in my place (and many other places - I can carry modem around), why not switching to 5G. I know Modem is costly ~$600-700 but not sure how stupid is this decision.

BTW, I heard about 15ms ping on 5G. I get around that in speedtest.net but here is what I get when pinging in terminal while hotspotting:

nbn (FTTN):

—- google.com ping statistics —-
5 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 20.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 105.477/112.254/120.992/6.465 ms

4G:

—- google.com ping statistics —-
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 65.735/76.508/95.314/11.873 ms

5G:

—- google.com ping statistics —-
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 90.169/129.844/176.769/30.869 ms

Poll Options

  • 11
    5G Telstra
  • 2
    5G Optus
  • 3
    5G Vodafone
  • 14
    NBN
Internet Broadband nbn

Related Stores

Telstra
Telstra

Comments

  • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 00:58

    Also maybe could find similar deals making the modem free: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/618137

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 14:54

      Forgot to mention that you can bring your mobile simplans to same account with your home 5G plan to pool/share the data with.

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 19:39

      Checked this with local jbhifi today and still they have the deal - free $600 modem on 1y plan, $69/M, but 300GB/M (equivalent in Telstra: $75/M, 400GB/M + have to pay for modem, month to month plan)

  • RockyRaccoon on 17/10/2021 - 07:35

    Wow all those figures, but you don’t mention how much data per month you need.

    Isn’t that going to be the deciding factor.

    How much you use and how much this might cost.

    • dasher86 on 17/10/2021 - 08:42
      +2

      Telstra gives 5G connection with 400G/M (which is more than enough for us)

      • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 12:47

        Yes, correct. thank you. On average we use 350GB/M.

  • yellowfever on 17/10/2021 - 09:31
    +2

    First check nearest 5G tower that your operated by your carrier before you commit to any deals

  • PepperedAngus on 17/10/2021 - 10:49
    +1

    I have been using 4g modems for over 5 years. I have also been using the Telstra 5g modem for 7 months now.
    I average 150 mbps download with a 15 mbps upload which is better than the NBN speed I can get (FTTN). It is solely reliant on your location and your data requirements.
    I doubt you would be using 5g unless you set up an external antenna in view of the tower.
    Get your mobile phone and do a speed test in your living room. That's roughly the speeds you will get with 5g internet.

    • dasher86 on 17/10/2021 - 13:06
      +1

      Get your mobile phone and do a speed test in your living room. That's roughly the speeds you will get with 5g internet

      It would give you a bit of an indication but it would depend on of the mobile phone bands and carrier aggregate category were similar to the 5g modem.

  • avoidfullprice on 17/10/2021 - 10:50
    +1

    Have you used the Nighthawk 24/7 for extended period of time? My experience with them is not so good. The modem needs resetting every now as it loses internet connection (over LAN). The modem is good for on the go business travelling.

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 13:07
      +1

      wow not at all… no experience with 5G modems. And exactly this was my choice to get because of LAN port to connect it to my switch. Very good to know, thank you so much. Another thing to consider as @Twix mentioned is the NAT type out of modem which is not apparently compatible with local networking.

  • Twix on 17/10/2021 - 10:52
    +4

    Mobile networks use CG-NAT (Carrier Grade NAT) and this can break access to Plex, cameras, remote access, servers, home automation and more. If you don't do any of this 5G can be a suitable replacement.

    nbn are running FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) in Ascot, Perth in 2022 or 2023. When it's RTC (Ready to Connect) you put in an order with select ISPs of at least 100/20 and the final part of the installation will be done. 1000/50 and 250/25 is also available.

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 12:59
      +1

      Many thanks for reminding this. Very important point as I have some essential networking at home for server, rasbperrypi, even have pxe server for re-imaging over network. I was so happy that there's a model of 5G modem (this) with ethernet output port to connect it to my switch. Well, maybe there is some solution to this issue that I need to do a bit of research but had totally forgotten about it. Thanks again for bringing this up.

      • Twix on 17/10/2021 - 21:39

        A VPN might help.

        Does your nbn go any faster than 25Mbps?

        • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 22:48
          +1

          no, already checked that with ISP and 35 is the max supported by our FTTN.
          I'm doing a bit of research to find solution for CG-NAT and vpn could be one of potential options. So far, I can ssh with no issue between all machines connected to the same hotspot. Experimenting feasibility of essential features on CG-NAT at the moment…

  • Pelicannn on 17/10/2021 - 10:54
    +2

    I use 5G at home and have definitely enjoyed it more than NBN etc. Given you have telstra phones your speeds should be the same. I wouldn't recommend going with anyone else for 5G at home though in any case unless you can try it out. Telstra's 4G network was faster than the Optus 5G network when i did a comparison for me in Brisbane but it all depends how far you are from the tower.

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 12:52

      That's what we experienced with Telstra phone having ~300mbps 4G iPhone 8 and ~700 mbps 5G iPhone12.
      Good to know that you had actual comparison; I read the same here.

  • loropy9 on 17/10/2021 - 13:58
    +1

    So sad to see the beginning of the the end of our beloved nbn. Such a waste of $ for only a few years of gap stop solution between adsl and 5g. We could have bought more submarines with all that money. And just imagine how many new pubs we could have built…

  • stirlo on 17/10/2021 - 17:23
    +1

    What do you need the speed for if you're only using 400gb per month? Thats less than 2 hours of max speed usage. If you're using that much over a month what does the difference between 700Mbps and 50Mbps mean to you? Both can stream any media at full speed.

    • Alit on 17/10/2021 - 18:22

      The problem is not the speed, it's the connection quality. I know even my current 16mbps is enough for 4K streaming, but a bit tired of occasional nbn disconnections in general, also lower speed in pick hours. And when both (5G & nbn) are offered in similar price, why not more reliable 5G connection which comes with higher speed as bonus.

  • st1ng on 18/10/2021 - 09:27

    I'm on Optus 5G. I'm getting 20ms avg pings to 1.1.1.1

  • Toffees on 15/03/2022 - 19:08
    +1

    I just made the swap from FTTN NBN to Telstra 5g and my download speed went from 25mbps to 600 :)))

    • Alit on 17/03/2022 - 01:33
      +1

      Planning the same. Doesn’t worth staying with nbn if you have good 5g coverage. It’s more reliable and faster with similar price range!

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join