Slow NBN sees Geoff Quattromani try other solutions

Slow NBN speeds caused Geoff Quattromani to try other ways to access the internet.

A Starlink receiver.

Despite the NBN rollout costing more than $40bn, there is still a large number of Australians unable to experience speeds promised a decade ago.

The pandemic has seen many work from home, and many workers relocating to the outskirts of cities. It’s in those fringes and further into rural Australia where the benefits of the NBN are yet to be realised. Fortunately, there are alternatives.

In December 2021, we relocated from the growing suburb of The Ponds, 40km northwest of Sydney, to a home a further 10km away in Windsor Downs. This 10km gap provided a home with more land for our family, but saw us shift from the preferred fibre to the home NBN to a fibre to the node NBN.

When we were in the process of moving, our internet service provider told us that while they could place us on the NBN 100 plan in our upcoming location, we were unlikely to experience speeds anything close to 100Mbps.

Setting up our home internet was as important as making sure we had running water. We were fortunately up and running quickly but the dreaded speed test had to be done. Despite signing up to a NBN 100 plan, our internet service provider was correct and we experienced a best result of 30Mbps. As someone who participates in endless video conferences, this result was far from ideal and panic set in.

The alternatives to the NBN are wireless. The advances in 4G and 5G networks are providing real options to Australians who are not happy with their NBN offering. Some companies are offering no lock-in contracts so you can give it a try. Wireless coverage of your area will play a large part in how successful it will work for you.

Optus 4G home broadband

We first installed an Optus 4G home broadband solution and had it up and running in minutes. The 4G modem Optus provided had built in Wi-Fi, however we connected the modem to our existing Netgear Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi network. All of our smart home devices such as smart speakers, displays, cameras, lights and entertainment devices were immediately operating over the Optus 4G network.

At a cost of $59 per month for 500GB of data, we were in a position to save money compared to our NBN connection. A speed test immediately showed a doubling of our NBN speeds with an easy 60Mbps and a greater upload speed also. The Optus 5G network isn’t well established in our area, but this was already a better option to the NBN that neighbours also were struggling with.

We then tried a Telstra 5G home internet device. This slightly larger modem router has four ethernet ports and Wi-Fi, which could easily do the job for some families. We removed the Optus modem and put the Telstra option into our Orbi, in the same physical location, for testing.

Our speed tests saw results 10 times what the NBN delivered with a staggering 300Mbps download speed. We repeated this throughout the day, at night and in poor weather and the lowest result experienced was slightly more than 200Mbps, still miles ahead of where we were.

Telstra 5G home internet

The Telstra 5G home internet solution costs $85 per month with 1TB (1000GB) of downloads. This was the same amount we were spending on the NBN, but with far greater speeds.

This experiment has provided us with available options when you are tired of waiting for the promised NBN to be rolled out to your home.

These 4G and 5G networks have been rolled out faster and with better performance than the multi-billion dollar taxpayer funded NBN.

An NBN Co spokesperson said these mobile networks are inherently designed for people on the move and they’re complementary to the NBN and not optimised for the large proportion of Australian homes. In our experience this held true if you were living where the NBN variant was not using the old copper networks.

For those unable to access these wireless networks, Tesla founder Elon Musk is behind a company which could be your saving grace. Starlink is an internet service using more than 12,000 satellites orbiting the earth to deliver connectivity in hard to reach places. Starlink customers pay $709 for a dish and $139 per month for the service.

Telstra NBN comparison data

Speedtest.net reports that Starlink customers in Australia experienced average speeds of 138Mbps download and 22.63Mbps upload which, when compared to the NBN offering in their area, was close to ten times faster.

In the end, there are multiple viable options to the NBN that offer faster and better performance without it being a political football. Consider the alternatives and make the switch. Your life could be easier.

Geoff Quattromani is the host of the Technology Uncorked podcast and contributor to The Australian. Continue the conversation with Geoff on Twitter at @GQuattromani.