Huawei HG659

Cheap and Cheerful – I had to buy this Modem when i connected to Dodo NBN, i got it cheap, 2nd hand, but it has served me ok for approx 1 year now, only gripe i have is the WiFi is a little weak, otherwise it has been pulling just over 106mbps on the internet side. Show details

Terrible. Do Not Buy – iPrimus HG659 Router. Worst Router Ever. Keeps An Accurate Speed, then goes out completely. It stays just under 2 Mbps most of the time. Show details

Not very good – Works most of the time but a couple of random times a week it would seem to lose connectivity and devices connected to it would go offline, we'd then reboot it and then everything would come back online. Show details

HG659 is Bulletproof – HG659 is bullet proof they can be a little confusing at first for configuration, as a example port forwarding is by Mac and not IP. Most importantly they must be configured using Internet Explorer as chrome and Firefox sometimes doesn’t show the pages correctly. Very few dropouts compared to other brands. Show details

NO problems yet - runs for a month on NBN FTC – runs for 4 weeks without a problem and reliable speed as offered by DODO. I read a few of the comments>>> no information anybody > just complain. What are you connected to?? Different ways to connect to NBN. Our NBN only came in 2 month ago!! Show details ·  1

Dodo Huawei hg659 – Terrible wifi modem, it is very slow and annoying. Apps always crashing, When playing games it lags terribly bad. Would not recommend this modem. Show details

Worst modem probably out there – Frequent drop outs will make your life miserable. Connection suddenly falls when you are working or watching something. Sometimes if you are lucky it will come back some hours later on that day or if you are unlucky, it will be gone. It does not work even when you reset it.  Show details

On Contract, Stuck with it – Almost 2 years ago, signed up with dodo ADSL, a few months later came NBN in my area, HFC connection, modem suitable for both , continual drop outs, at least monthly, reset modem continually over 12-14 months, Then it Failed to work & died, dodo couldn't work out the issue, after 3 weeks without i/net they sent me another HG659 , Re packaged… Read more

original modem & posted it back . The newer unit has been better, an occasional drop out & reset. Not sure what to do when contract ends in 2 months, concerned about reliability, with covid19, working from home, need a strong reliable unit.

Basic and unreliable – Basic functionality. Doesn't handle moderate load and is prone to requiring power cycling. I suspect it also overheats easily. Often locked down by partnered ISPs to the point you can't even view logs. Mediocre wireless range. Show details

This modem has lots of problems – this is the second HG 659 modem modem that I have had to get since moving to NBN - nothing but problems since day one - it drops in and out all day and night causing lots of frustration, Dodo have just replaced it with the same one - hoping for better luck this time Show details

Very buggy firmware – Many of the advanced functions only partially work or don't work at all - particularly the WLAN access restrictions. Console response seems very slow when saving any changes, and many of the settings don't save or only occasionally save. Perhaps the onboard memory is faulty or disorganised in some way.  Show details

Really good for the price, I reckon – It has quite a good range, however I'm sure forking out more money will give you better connection. I haven't had any dropouts yet however only been using it for a week. Its really easy to set up and manage. Overall, no real complaints yet but well see how the future pans out.  Show details

HG659 DoDo Modem problem – The worst modem ever . We put on surge protector on the phone line .DoDo are great they patiently replace it but we have had a number replaced because of storm leaving us everytime without internet & home phone . This never happened under ADSL . I appreciate on the scale of things this is a cheap modem , but there ha to be a better solution . ie the white telstra modem my in law has that seems problem free  Show details

No isssues – Initially I had an issue but was rectified quickly by service provider with one phone call. Since then have found it easy to use and reset when or if necessary. Have had a few dropouts but wouldn't say it was the modem, it's more likely to be the NBN service, wish I could get ADSL2 back.  Show details

Better spend some $$$ and get a decent modem – I have had my third replacement in 20 months and I believe I'll have the similar issues soon such as loosing the internet, slow speed and disconnect from many devices without any reason. What is the point having nbn fast speed internet if you can't even use it with this crap modem???  Show details

Rubbish – Came with iinet NBN (HFC VDSL connection). Because of the thick walls in our old house we have two APs connected to the Huawei via ethernet. cable. It works OK normally but from time to time the Huawei starts ejecting devices from the network and the only solution is to power cycle it. The problem seems to be the DHCP server, which is… Read more

defective. We have complained to iinet but keep getting told "this is the only one whitelisted". Sub-par hardware.

Not a problem! – I have the Huawei HG659 and ever since I have had it it has not had one single problem which surprises me because every other modem I have had has had a few problems.It is so reliable.Was a breeze to set up and whenever I have an NBN problem and my internet is not working it faithfully appears on my computer screen ready to help and guide me through the checks that need to be done to diagnose the problem.Extremely happy!  Show details

Rubbish modem – Slow signal. Easy set up. Repeated hang ups and died within 14 months. To be honest - garbage. Got as good a speed on adsl with s better modem than tpg nbn with this modem . Will not take another if these. Pushing tpg to give something better than this!!  Show details

Underwhelming - at best! – The HG659 was supplied with the upgrade to Dodo NBN from ADSL2. It has been extremely disappointing right from the beginning with inexplicably slower speeds than the plan promised and daily reboots to clear out the cob-webs. Firmware has been deliberately knobbled so that VPN does not work with at least the providers I tried including my… Read more

current one (ExpressVPN). Neither Dodo or Huawei will take responsibility to fix it. As far as I am concerned, it is a brick without usable VPN connectivity.

The menus and internal settings are fairly modern, easy to navigate and neat.

There is a restriction on the number of devices that can have their IP address reserved which is useless in a household with many devices so forget about trying to organize your network to any degree of accuracy.

The internal firewall settings are VERY basic with Low Med or High protection. After tearing my hair out wondering why many streaming sites would not connect, I discovered the firewall MUST be set to lowest protection (essentially NO protection) to allow streaming through. Never had this issue before on other modems.

Seeing that it was very swiftly a discontinued product, it appears that these units were dumped onto ISPs to get rid of remaining stock.

Would not recommend. Loads of frustration.

Stable basic wifi modem – Got this modem for free from TPG as part of signing up to their FTTB service. Good no frills modem that does the job. Longest up-time so far without disconnection so far is about 45 days. Features dual mode frequency band (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz), which can be useful for high density apartment buildings with a lot of wifi signal. Only complaint is the lack of fancy networking features that are available for other wifi modems  Show details

Needs rebooting 2-4 times daily – The modem worked fine for the first two months. Then it would refuse to deliver data to some randomly selected devices but not all every few days. Within a couple of months, every few days turned into every few hours. The only thing that would fix it was to reboot the router. Several times per day. It was then replaced under warranty. The… Read more

warranty replacement did the same thing after one month, and within 3 months, had to be rebooted many times per day. We ended up negotiating replacement with a different brand, which hasn't missed a beat in 6 months.

Decent basic modem – Came free with iiNet VDSL2, so far after almost two years it still runs fine. Good WIFI coverage for my apartment and it also starts up very quickly. Never had any dropouts. I actually prefer it to the newer modem iiNet has started supplying customers, the Technicolor TG789vac V2. I'll continue using it until it breaks.  Show details

Working prefect – it is free from TPG when joining NBN super easy to set up and very user friendly when i need to change the password standing up is prefect and saving the space and it hide behind every thing on the desk never has bad or nil reception and i love it so much  Show details

Constantly drops signal and link to ISP – Worked fine for first several months however probably after a month out of warranty started having frequent signal loss and can't game or stream online movies with it. Called my ISP who stated they wouldn't send another router. All in all not happy, seems timely that it failed just out of warranty. In order to fix the problems I have to hard reset the unit once every day or two now. Pathetic.  Show details

Average Modem – Modem given by ISP when purchasing plan. Very average modem in terms of signal strength sometimes does not actually get around the whole house, but otherwise modem is solidly built, and also is relatively easy to configure though requires a little bit of googling when you finally get into the guts of the settings.  Show details

It randomly drops my Apple connections – Ever since I changed form ADSL to the NBN and received this Huawei HG659 with my package, my Macbook gets disconnected while the MS computer operates flawlessly. I was told by iiNet that my Mac WIFI was faulty. It affects all my Apple appliances. I am no tech expert, but I kid games on the MS computor via WIFI, no problem. I now have connected the… Read more

MS computer through network cable, and my Macbook seems to work with no issues. Any idea why

this should happen?

Good for apartments – I've lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with dry wall divisions between rooms. It covers the whole apartment well enough with its wifi for streaming 1080p videos to other terminals around the place. It's able to produce trouble shooting logs to find if its your equipment or the DSL end that may be causing trouble. Over all a good product for my minimal needs  Show details

So far So good – Came with TPG's bundle of NBN and so far it has been good. Connection reaches all parts of the home with ease and huawei router gateway very simple to use. Not sure if the internet speed is limited by the modem or my location but net speeds not going as fast as expected.  Show details

very good product – very good product and a good value for money as well bought it last year and till date didnt have any issue apart from couple of restarts never had a issue perfect connectivity and wi fi range good speeds as well, have connected multiple devices but the speed never drops  Show details

Does the job – This is an ok modem that I got with my TPG FTTB plan, however it does not have a good wifi range thus I did purchase an additional ASUS router to extend the range to my whole house. In terms of installation, it is easy to install and all the instructions are provided, size wise it is similar to all the other NBN modem.  Show details