Thanks in advance to you tech gurus for advice 🫡
Looking for best router for under $200.
But of course, as a true OzBargainer cheaper but with good value and functionality is better! 😆
We're on FTTC NBN 50M internet.
Current router is around 4 years old and came originally with Belong internet.
Thanks for your help!
if youre lucky under $50
Was gonna say, I got 2 free from the $1 3 months deal and I can't fault it, gave a better signal than my Google Mesh.
Not sure if the sim in there refreshes though, our nbn line went down for a few days and after a while it went over the cap
Is there anything wrong with your current router? or WiFi Coverage? If not, then you can save your money. As most cheapo router can handle speed up to 80Mbps without any issue.
gl.inet brume2. less than $100
great router.
sucks if you want wifi though, but you didnt ask for that
gen3 telstra modem
How tech savvy are you? I am a big fan of used Netgear R7000 with FreshTomato firmware… they go for $50 on marketplace and have excellent wifi, stability and throughput.
R7000 is kinda dated and slow nowadays, even when it was current it relied on hardware acceleration to speed it up enough for Gigabit, which means no filtering/firewall at that speed. Should be fine for OP's 50M connection for now, but you can just get the stock Telstra Gen 2 modem instead for that much, and its a fairly capable OpenWRT modem/router with a Telstra skin on top.
I get up to 800Mbps through it no problem with the firmware I mentioned, and hardware accel off (aka with all features). But the telstra option is certainly workable for a reasonable setup. I just feel the R7000 has the edge in capability.
The hardware is only capable of 200-300mbps without HW NAT Accel/CTF, I've owned one in the past, and this is common knowledge with this router. Open-sourced based firmware has SFE, which is an open sourced implementation of Level 1 NAT acceleration, but its not as fast as Broadcom's proprietary CTF and is closer to the ~500mbps mark, with up to 900 down/600 up in ideal scenario. But regardless, HW accel means no QOS/Firewall/Bandwidth limiter because those require the packets to be processed in software rather than cheated through hardware.
The Telstra is a much more powerful router. The R7000 isn't getting that speed in software, the SoC is fairly underpowered (dual core Cortex A9 at 1Ghz), that's why Broadcom needed to cheat with Hardware Acceleration in the first place to sell it as a Gigabit-capable router.
Also, I should probably clear up that this is WAN speed (NBN box to router). Gigabit Ethernet within the network is just Switching.
@[Deactivated]: I get far far better speeds than that, but happy to take your advice that the Telstra unit is more powerful.
@pinchies: If you get better speed, then hardware accel is enabled whether you know it or not, that's the gist of it.
Asus are my go to routers, AiMesh works well for those larger areas of coverage
Looks like OP is AWAL after asking.
Whatever Asus within budget is my general go to.
Thanks for all the info!
Busy researching now after all the tips! Who would have thought there'd be so many routers on the market!!
Will report back what I decide on 😀
What is wrong with your current one?
There's nothing wrong with the one you have. Spend the money on a central location for power and nbn wire through the ceiling… then mount the modem/router on the ceiling as well. If its a 2 story house, don't move it at all and use mesh units to extend your wifi instead.
I was thinking the same!
Dump shops are usually full with discarded modems.
Buy a cheap used SFF PC off ebay, a low profile dual NIC off aliexpress and build yourself a Pfsense router.
Sorry to hijack thread but anyone know which router brand has the best UI?
Thanks for all the info peeps 😀
The search continues!
Try finding Telstra Gen 3 modem on Facebook Marketplace?
Can be under $100…