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Whether you've got the NBN or you're still on ADSL, to get fast and reliable connections to all your wireless home-network devices you need a fast wireless router for your home Wi-Fi. We lab test and review models to help you find the best wireless router for you.
Our buying guide will help you know what features to look for.
Our test covers dual-band wireless routers and tri-band wireless routers, all of them NBN-ready.
Our expert testers give every router a thorough workout to help find the models that:
Our interactive comparison tool helps you find out which routers have a built-in modem and VoIP support and which have the best parental filter controls.
Our Recommended list will help you see quickly which models come out on top.
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List of brands we tested in this review.
Price as of February 2019
enter value/s in increments of 1 between 59 and 566
We recommend models in this test that scored 80% or more overall.
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Lets you give visitors access to the internet, but not your local network.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) lets you attach a phone handset and use a voice-over-internet-provider service to make phone calls over the internet.
A built-in modem can connect to the internet via your ISP.
Whether the router supports Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) guidelines that make connection to other networked devices and streaming media files across your network easier.
A router that includes two separate 5GHz wireless networks in addition to a 2.4GHz network.
Inbuilt filters that use a managed list to block known malicious and inappropriate sites.
Type of 802.11 Wi-Fi standard support included.
Whether the router supports MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), which uses multiple antennas to improve Wi-Fi performance.
Beamforming uses multiple antennas to direct the Wi-Fi signal more precisely to your client devices.
The number of built-in antennas (Select the "Compare all products" button and see Antenna placement for more information).
A combination of VPN hardware and software technologies that enables hosting and delivery of VPN services to VPN clients.
Supports devices configured with VPN third-party client software.
This feature allows any devices connected to the router to establish outbound VPN connections.
The fastest achieved throughput result on the 2.4GHz band. MBps = megabytes per second.
enter value/s in increments of 1 between 0 and 0
Measures the fastest single 5GHz band throughput result. Tri-band routers may have a higher overall total throughput because they can transmit on two separate 5GHz bands simultaneously, to support multiple devices, but they do not aggregate the two bands to give a faster result to one client device. MBps = megabytes per second.
This is the total throughput achieved on the 5GHz band. Tri-band routers have two 5GHz radios, hence their higher throughput in this test. MBps = megabytes per second.
A Similar model is identical in most aspects except for a few. This means that a majority of its test results are identical so you can reasonably expect to get the same results from the model we tested, but for those aspects which aren't identical, we'll note these as "Not Tested" in the Compare tables.
A Tested model refers to a model that is still current and available in the Australian market. You should be able to order this model through your local retailer, or find it online.
These models can't be found in retailers or online or are no longer manufactured. You may still find these models on second hand websites, or in second hand dealers. Test methods may change over time, so criteria which can't be directly compared will contain an N/A.
An Identical model is exactly that. Performance characteristics will be identical and the only difference will be something trivial such as colour, which won't have an impact on performance.
These are models we haven't yet tested but that are available.
The performance score is based on total throughput, which is a combination of 2.4GHz and 5GHz throughput, and tri-band router throughput is based on 5GHz combined throughput.
The ease of use score is made up of: how easy it is to connect the router to the Internet; how easy it is to change wireless names and passwords; and how easy it is to implement extra features such as internet access controls or parental filters.
