The tests were carried out during December and January in laboratory conditions by a company known as Enex for the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Services from Optus, Telstra and iiNet were used for the tests.

Both wired and Wi-Fi throughput were tested and the findings indicated that in the former case there was little difference between the various modems, but in the case of Wi-Fi there was a great deal of difference in throughput.

Modem performance was also tested through walls, at long distances and in circumstances where interference was present from cabling and common household devices like microwave ovens.

Twenty-six of the devices were sourced from electronic retailers with the remaining 17 sourced from 10 NBN retail service providers.

Enex found that better Wi-Fi performance could be achieved using a device that used the 802.11ac standard (or next generation 802.11ax, also known as Wi-Fi 6) operating in the 5GHz band.

The tests showed that for copper cabling up to 450 metres, most devices were able to achieve 80% of the manufacturer’s advertised line performance. As the length of copper was increased, performance dropped.

But the Netcomm N300 NF10WV, a device supplied by Harbour ISP, was an exception as performance dropped sharply at a line length of 450 metres.