NetComm NF20MESH modem-router review

Telstra, Optus and Vodafone tend to chuck in a compatible modem-router if you purchase any of their respective NBN plans. But there are plenty of other NBN providers that let customers choose from one or more bits of networking gear, ideally in a preconfigured state so you’re good to go out of the box. The NetComm NF20MESH is one of those devices—a modem-router offered by Aussie Broadband, More NBN, SkyMesh and Tangerine—and while it had a decent start in my testing, the more time I spent with it, the more the basics fell apart.

If there’s stock, you can grab a NetComm NF20MESH modem-router for just under $200 on Amazon, but good luck finding it at other online retailers. The cheaper way to nab an NF20MESH, though, is when you purchase an NBN plan from a participating NBN provider. For a standalone starter unit, $169.90 is the cheapest price for the NF20MESH from either More NBN or Tangerine.

Aussie Broadband charges $180 while SkyMesh is the priciest at $199.99. For larger homes or those prone to interference (like mine, but more on that later), you can also buy the NF20MESH with a single or two-pack CloudMesh Satellite mesh expansion. Prices for those start at $289.90 and $399.90, respectively, from More and Tangerine.

If you’re in the market for an NBN plan, check out today’s popular picks.

There are two major frustrations with initial setup of the NetComm NF20MESH. First, there’s no companion app, so installation is via web portal. Depending on how familiar you are with that archaic process, this will either be manageable or annoying. Second, the NF20MESH has those critical web portal credentials printed on the bottom of the modem-router.

So, yeah, take a pic of that before you get too attached to the NF20MESH’s placement and start plugging in the cables. You’ll need the device’s default IP address and username credentials to start setup, which had a painful Web 1.0 feel for me. Admittedly, I bought a retail unit with default firmware, and anyone who’s bought an NF20MESH from an NBN provider will hopefully receive theirs preconfigured (and updated).

For anyone like me, though, you’ll likely be just as annoyed at the 30-second wait times for any setting that you change. You also can’t bulk change settings and hit ‘save’ either, so there’s artificial time added per tweak. Band steering—a common networking feature that automatically switches devices between 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi bands—was disabled by default, and I had to go digging into the advanced features just to enable it.

I had a much better experience when I updated the firmware. The trick there, though, is there’s no automated option for firmware updates, meaning you have to manually hunt down a file to get the NF20MESH up to speed. Note that it’s unadvisable to update the firmware if your NF20MESH came preconfigured from an NBN provider because they likely won’t be able to remotely access it for troubleshooting. For everyone else, the updated firmware makes for a much better user interface in the web portal, not to mention massively reduced time between saving settings tweaks, even if that band steering option mysteriously disappeared for me after the firmware update.

Speed tests are a good way to identify initial pitfalls with networking gear, especially if your live in a large home and/or one that’s prone to WiFi dead spots. The thing is, they don’t tell the full story, which is why it’s worth using a new piece of networking kit for at least a week or two before deciding whether it’s the right fit.

All of my router internet speed tests are conducted with an Exetel NBN 100/20 FTTC apartment connection, using Ethernet for the first test then a Google Pixel 7 Pro for the WiFi tests (via WiFi 6). All of the tests below were done in the evening. Lower numbers are best for latency (measured in milliseconds), while larger numbers are better for download and upload speeds (both measured in megabits-per-second). Use the top line of results in the tables as an idea of best-case speeds at that time of day, then every line below as comparative. Signal strength according to Google is ranked from best to worst as excellent, good, fair and poor.

I use my go-to Synology RT6600ax router to test base scores before doing speed tests on whatever I’m reviewing. Here’s how those results looked and, yes, those failed garage tests are consistent with other RT6600ax tests.

And below is how the NetComm NF20MESH performed immediately after connection and initial setup once those RT6600ax tests are done.

Despite its age, the NF20MESH still managed to at least record results for the tricky garage tests, which are designed to catch out networking gear that doesn’t have the best external wall penetration. That said, those download and upload results for my study and bathroom are below WiFi 6 expectations, with the laundry tests noticeably lagging in terms of download speeds. Still, latency is great across the board, and those two bottom-row outside-apartment scores are particularly impressive given the NF20MESH’s reliance on the typically stunted 5GHz WiFi band.

At this point of my testing, I was impressed with the NF20MESH, but that changed after dozens of hours of everyday use.

Let’s get the versatility out of the way up front. I like that, as a modem-router, the NetComm NF20MESH is compatible with every NBN connection type, meaning it can travel with you regardless of what connection type is at your next address. There’s also the mesh expansion potential via CloudMesh Satellites, one or two of which likely would’ve offered better performance in the problematic back part of my apartment.

As for the performance, the NF20MESH was all over the place. On Ethernet connections, there are fewer issues for everyday internet tasks, including web browsing, voice chat, video calls, online gaming, as well as downloading and uploading files. But WiFi connectivity felt more temperamental the longer I used it, across devices, sometimes with low-data things like GIFs failing to load or taking a lot longer than they should.

These issues were amplified in the back part of my apartment, and it doesn’t help that the MIA band steering option after the firmware update made me reliant on manually jumping between 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. And that’s only when both were available. Towards the end of my testing, my Google Nest Hub dropped out, which clued me on to the reality that the 5GHz band was having issues. The issue: it had disappeared completely.

After I power cycled the NF20MESH, the 5GHz band was back up and running, but that’s a big con on the reliability front. Worse was the inconsistent nature of the NF20MESH’s Quality of Service (QoS) feature. For starters, the QoS is way more complicated than it should be. There were times when it worked great during my Steam download tests while my partner was streaming, with no impact to the stream quality. But then when I was downloading games via the PlayStation Network, streams were freezing, and basic internet functionality slowed to a crawl.