Optus 5G Home Broadband Review

The Optus 5G Home Broadband modem is a cruel and unusual device, insistent on taunting me. "Your internet could be faster", it screams silently, with the signal strength indicator stuck on orange.

Built by Nokia, Optus' 5G modem uses a traffic light system for signal strength. Red is the worst, green is the best. Orange is just okay. There's a ring of LEDs on top of the modem to help with positioning, but no matter where I place the modem, I can't attain the fabled green light. For the sake of science, I've even had had the modem outdoors on my balcony.

It's not like I'm complaining. I can get great 5G speeds with an "okay" connection. But if okay is already great, I need to know just how much better "best" is. Every glance at my modem makes me feel like I'm missing out. I don't need an extra 100Mbps, but I want it anyway. That's just who I am as a person. You should see how obsessed I get with meeting my Apple Watch imposed fitness goals. 

Despite my orange tormentor, I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm one of the few Australians currently able to get a 5G connection at home - and the experience has been mostly positive.

Speed demon

Optus' 5G Home Internet is ostensibly pitched as an NBN alternative, just like other 4G home broadband options. For $70 per month, you can get an unlimited internet connection powered by the Optus 5G network. That's pretty much what the going price of an unlimited NBN 50 plan is.

Of course, an Optus 5G Home Broadband connection has the potential to be much faster than an NBN 50 plan. Or even than an NBN 100 plan. In my testing, I've seen speeds over 300Mbps, which is about three times as fast as my regular internet connection. And not bad at all considering my paltry amber connectivity hue.

For context, 300Mbps is a lot. It means you're able to download 30 megabytes in a single second. That brings the download time of a massive game, such as Destiny 2, for example, down to under an hour. You could theoretically run 12 simultaneous 4K Netflix streams. Downloading an album is essentially instant. There aren't many applications that need an internet connection that fast, but it's certainly nice to have. Especially at the same price as an NBN 50 plan. 

300Mbps speeds have been somewhat of a best case scenario for me, however. 200Mbps is a more realistic figure, and I've seen speeds as low as 120Mbps in the evening. But without speed testing, I probably wouldn't have been able to tell - my connection has always more than fast enough. The only time I was actually aware of my 5G speeds was when I was downloading a large file or actively running a test. 

After a certain point, most real world activities won't benefit from more speed. Netflix isn't going to look any better on a 300Mbps connection than it does on a 120Mbps or 50Mbps connection. Despite the fluctuation, my 5G consistently felt fast enough. 

And sure, there's a huge difference between 120Mbps and 300Mbps, but this is still the kind of connection that would make many Australians envious. Especially the 76% of FTTN customers who won't be able to achieve NBN 100 speeds by the end of rollout. 

My 5G speeds might be great for now, but I'm curious about how consistent they'll be as more and more people connect to the network. Wireless networks are far more prone to congestion than fixed-line networks like the NBN, which is why there's far more variance in speed.

The NBN has its own congestion issues - thanks to NBN Co's pricing model, rather than network capability - but the fluctuation isn't quite as significant. You're typically only losing 20% of your speed during busy periods, rather than as much as two-thirds.

It's impossible to predict the future, but Optus has definitely considered congestion when designing its 5G Home Broadband plan. If your speeds drop under 50Mbps, you can cancel your contract without exit fees. But even if your speeds are hovering right above the 50Mbps mark, the worst case scenario is you're left with a connection roughly equivalent to an NBN 50 plan at pretty much the same price.

Upload speeds aren't quite as exciting over 5G right now, but they're still on par with what you'd get on an NBN connection. In my speed tests, I've typically seen my upload range between 20 and 40Mbps. At a minimum, it's almost identical to an NBN 50 plan.

Latency is another factor worth considering. Mobile connections tend to have a higher ping - the time it takes for data to get between your device and the internet - than a fixed-line connection, but I didn't find this to be impactful in day-to-day usage. My NBN connection typically has a ping around 10ms, while my Optus 5G Home Internet connection was typically sitting around 20ms, with the occasional blowout to 40ms. This could have more of an effect if you're a gamer, but playing Overwatch on Optus 5G still seemed fine. If I didn't know I was using a mobile connection, I wouldn’t have been able to tell, but also, I'm a scrub.

Bits and bobs

The WiFi range on the modem itself seems more than respectable. I've only tested in my apartment, but it's been covered effortlessly despite an appliance wall that tends to stop lesser WiFi signals in their tracks. I'm even able to get a decent connection in the hallway outside my front door. While your mileage will vary depending on the size and composition of your home, the modem is compatible with Nokia's mesh networking range. If you're not getting quite enough WiFi coverage, you can pair the modem with a Nokia Beacon 1 or Nokia Beacon 3 to extended signal throughout your home.

Setting up the bundled modem is ostensibly foolproof; it's quite literally a case of plug and play. At the most, you'll need to insert a SIM card. After that, you just need to plug in the modem and you're ready to go.

The hardest part of the process will likely be finding the ideal spot in your home; 5G isn't great at penetrating walls yet. There'll be parts of your dwelling where the network will be stronger than others. There might be parts with no 5G at all. You might luck out the first time you switch on the modem, or you might need to experiment with a few different locations like I did. And even then, you might be stuck with an insufferable orange light that slowly drives you insane. The joys of bleeding edge technology.

Bleeding edge isn't an exaggeration. There are currently just under 200,000 households in Optus' 5G footprint. If we assume an average of three individuals per household, we're only talking at about 2.5% of the population. For comparison, almost 11 million premises are ready to connect to the NBN. Right now, 5G broadband is a pipedream for most.

Optus 5G Home Broadband - Final Thoughts

The reality is, my excitement and frustrations mean little to most, given how limited 5G is right now. But as the 5G rollout continues, we should see rough edges sanded off as the technology matures. If you can't 5G at home for another year, your experience will hopefully be better than what I'm having right now, and I'm already impressed. Maybe you'll even attain the illusive green signal strength indicator. Now that would be something worth getting excited about.

But hey, if you're one of the lucky ones, Optus 5G home broadband is a relatively low-risk experiment. There are very few reasons not to try it out. The best case scenario is incredibly alluring, especially for anyone still stuck on ADSL or with a poor NBN connection. Even if you've got an okay NBN connection, the prospect of faster speeds for less money is hard to resist.

And if it turns out you can't get reliable 5G connectivity or your speeds get too low, you're able to cancel your contract without any penalty. Outside of that, what's the worst that could happen? Being forced to endure 300Mbps speeds while a pesky orange light tells you they could be better? I guess there are worse fates.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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