Late one night, a student in an apartment near Chinatown (Haymarket) lost all internet. Their setup was a Telstra gateway on an Aussie Broadband (ABB) 50Mbps DSL plan, with a Xiaomi router brought over from China as a spare. The Telstra gateway had died — and the Xiaomi couldn’t take over, because it has no DSL (phone-line) port. We arrived at 11pm, proved the DSL line was fine with our own DSL router, and had them online again the same night.
The line was fine, but both boxes on-site were dead ends: the Telstra gateway had failed, and the China-bought Xiaomi has an Ethernet WAN port only — no DSL/phone (RJ11) port — so it can’t plug into an Australian DSL socket.
| China-bought Xiaomi | A DSL-capable router | |
|---|---|---|
| DSL / phone (RJ11) port | None | Yes |
| How it connects | Ethernet WAN only (needs a modem) | Plugs straight into the DSL wall socket |
| Usable on a DSL line? | A China-bought router can still work in Australia as a WiFi router behind a working modem — but it can’t replace a dead DSL gateway on its own. For DSL you need a modem-router with a phone (RJ11) port, or a separate modem in front of it. | |
Root cause: the Telstra gateway had failed — not the Aussie Broadband line or plan — and the China-bought Xiaomi had no DSL port to fill in. We had the student back online the same night on a DSL router and advised a proper DSL-capable replacement on a stable power outlet.
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