Exetel Home Secure: Canstar Blue Innovation Award Winner

With internet access evolving from a novel luxury to an essential utility, it’s easy to forget the risks associated with getting online. Most of us don’t think twice about logging on daily for work, school or entertainment, despite the potential exposure to cyber-threats or inappropriate and illegal material.

There’s a wide range of cyber security software on offer, but these products operate separately from your broadband plan — and often require subscriptions, downloads, installation and renewals across a range of devices to keep your whole family safe. But if you’re looking for a simpler alternative, internet provider Exetel’s Home Secure service is designed to add layers of security to your existing broadband plan, without adding complicated extra software to your devices.

Canstar Blue’s Innovation Excellence Awards judges were impressed by Home Secure’s ease of use, accessibility and focus on parental control, combined with its free trial period and low monthly fee.

What is Exetel Home Secure?

Home Secure is Exetel’s own cyber-security and parental control product, which is available to all Exetel home internet customers. Unlike other anti-virus, security or parental lock software, Home Secure works at the level of your home internet connection, meaning every device connected to your WiFi is protected.

You won’t need separate subscriptions for multiple devices or users in your household, and the service covers everything connected to your home internet: that includes laptops, phones, tablets, gaming consoles, smart home products, security cameras and more. There’s also nothing to download or install, as Home Secure is automatically activated with your Exetel broadband plan.

Exetel Home Secure’s key features include:

• Anti-malware and anti-virus protection: blocks viruses, ransomware, key logging, Trojans, crypto-jacking and more
• Anti-phishing protection: blocks sites that steal personal data
• Anti-bot protection: blocks bots to prevent identity and data theft
• Parental control: blocks inappropriate content such as violence, pornography, terrorism, gambling, etc.
• Focus time: allows scheduled or restricted access to the internet for kids, and restricts distracting content such as gaming or social media

Home Secure uses Military Grade Encryption to protect your data, and is delivered in partnership with cybersecurity firm Allot. Exetel says the program employs advanced technology to identify and stop threats, including automated and research-based analysis of websites and content classification that is updated every few minutes. This helps ensure no ‘over-blocking’ of content, and allows users submit unblock requests which can be resolved immediately.

Customers will receive notifications when cyberthreats are detected, or when a user has tried to access restricted content. You’re able to personalise notifications and settings in the My Exetel app or portal, and can view incident reports for the last 24 hours, last 7 days or last month to keep on top of trending threats.

All Exetel home broadband services come with a free two-month Home Secure trial, with ongoing subscriptions priced at $6 per month. This includes protection for every connected device in your home as soon as your service is activated. Exetel customers can also cancel their subscription at any time without penalty, as there’s no contracts or exit fees.

Exetel told Canstar Blue at the time of judging that since launching the product in February 2021, a total of 19.8 million threats had been blocked from Exetel home broadband services.

Why do we like Exetel Home Secure?

Exetel Home Secure makes protecting your home’s devices — and keeping your kids’ eyes off explicit content — incredibly simple. There’s nothing to download and install as it’s applied at the internet connection level, the product comes automatically activated in free trial mode with new Exetel broadband plans, and it can be easily rolled on to your monthly bill once your free trial ends.

It also gives parents in particular a wide range of control and customisation options, including blocking specific URLs, managing Safe Search, and allocating internet access times for children to avoid online distractions.

With subscriptions priced at $6 per month, Home Secure is also an affordable way for families to keep their devices and data safe from outside threats: an ongoing subscription costs $72 per year, and covers every phone, laptop, tablet, and internet-connected piece of tech in your household.

“Exetel has paired affordability with ease of use to offer a simple, effective home security solution that also gives parents peace of mind,” said Canstar Blue Telco Editor, Tara Donnelly.

“By bundling the service with home broadband, and offering easy management and control options from Exetel’s own account portals, the telco provides customers with total online protection for the whole family, without the expense and effort of buying and installing software for a dozen or more devices.”

Exetel NBN plans

The following table shows a selection of published unlimited Exetel NBN plans on Canstar Blue’s database, listed in order of standard monthly cost, from the lowest to highest. Use our NBN comparison tool to see plans from a range of other providers. This is a selection of products with links to a referral partner.

What are Canstar Blue’s Innovation Excellence Awards?

Canstar Blue’s Innovation Excellence Awards involve a sophisticated rating methodology, unique to Canstar, which compares submissions we receive from Telecommunications and Energy institutions throughout Australia. Canstar Blue’s Innovation Excellence Award winners represent a selected group of innovative products within the Energy and Telecommunications industries over the most recent year which have all been reviewed, assessed and ranked based on the degree of innovation and impact it could have on consumers.

Innovation Awards Methodology available on request.