Full Fibre UK ISP Hyperoptic Launch Nokia Hyperhub Router
Gigabit broadband ISP Hyperoptic has today announced the introduction of a new “Hyperhub” router, the Nokia HA-140W-B, which promises a peak theoretical combined WiFi speed of 2.92Gbps but will only be available to new customers who take out one of their top 500Mbps of 1Gbps full fibre (FTTP/B) packages.
At present the provider’s network is already known to cover well over 400,000 premises and they have an ambition to cover 2 million UK premises with FTTB / FTTP by the end of 2021, which could be followed by 5 million come the end of 2024 (mostly in urban areas). The operator mostly does this by focusing upon large apartment blocks (MDUs), which are cheaper and quicker to install.
Until now Hyperoptic has had an annoying tendency to bundle (free) some not particularly impressive routers from companies like ZTE and Tilgin, although it could be argued that those who live in apartments don’t have quite the same WiFi challenges as people who live in houses. Nevertheless, as a full fibre provider we expected more and happily the new Nokia HA-140W-B is a much stronger piece of kit.
The router’s core connectivity features include a 3×3 802.11ac WiFi antenna setup for the 2.4GHz band (PHY rate up to 750Mbps) and 4×4 on 5GHz (up to 2170Mbps) – with 1024QAM capable clients, as well as 1 x Gigabit WAN port, 4 x Gigabit LAN ports, 2 x USB 2.0 ports and 1 x RJ-11 FXS VoIP port for connecting a phone. The router also supports Nokia’s Mesh WiFi technology and we assume it’ll work with Nokia’s WiFi Mobile app too.
Charles Davies, Hyperoptic’s MD, said:
“Too many broadband providers neglect to provide their customers with the cutting-edge equipment which really makes a difference to their connectivity experience. Modern homes and offices now have so many devices, and intelligently managing the connection to them over the right channel and band is key.
Bringing the new Nokia Hyperhub to UK customers for the first time is further demonstration of our commitment to going beyond the expected to ensure our customers receive the very best experience possible.”
The catch here is that at present you’ll only be able to get this device alongside the providers’ top two residential tiers (500Mbps and 1Gbps), as well as all of their business packages, but hopefully that will change in the future. Otherwise we believe that the router’s full specification sheet looks a bit like this (from Nokia’s site).
Nokia HA-140W-B Specification Sheet
• One WAN Ethernet uplink (10/100/1000 auto-negotiate)
• Four LAN Ethernet ports (10/100/1000 auto-negotiate)
• WLAN on/off button
• Nokia WiFi mesh support
• Dual-band concurrent WiFi with 3×3 802.11b/g/n at 2.4GHz and 4×4 802.11ac at 5GHz
• WPS button (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• LEDs disable button
• One RJ-11 FXS VoIP port
• 5 REN per line
• Traffic classification and QoS capability
• Multiple voice Codec
• MDI/MDIX auto-negotiation
• Line Rate L2 traffic
• UPnP IGD2.0 support
• Internal DHCP server, with configurable DHCP pool and gateway
• 64/128 WEP encryption
• WPA, WPA-PSK/TKIP
• WPA2, WPA2-PSK/AES
• Ethernet-based Point-to-Point (PPPoE)
• Network Address Translation (NAT)
• Network Address Port Translation (NAPT)
• ALG and UPnP port forwarding
• DMZ
• IP/MAC filter
• Multi-level firewall
• DNS server
• DHCP client/server
• Compatible with Nokia access bridges (Fibre ONT and G.Fast/DSL/CPE)
• Compatible with Nokia management platforms (Nokia WiFi Mesh Controller, CDP)
• Compatible with Nokia WiFi Mobile app
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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They should have made it to the WiFi 6 standard if they want folks to get very high speeds over WiFi. Of course you also need a WiFi 6 clients but there’s plenty around on the latest and greatest smartphones, laptops etc.
The problem with 802.11ax is that it’s only just reached the commercial market and will thus be too expensive for providers that need to bulk-purchase. I suspect it’ll be next year before we see somebody come out with a bundled WiFi6 router, once the unit prices have fallen and there’s more competition for the chipsets.
On top of that you have the issue of WiFi6E, which will add the 6GHz band and might cause some ISPs to wait a bit longer rather than spend on WiFi6 now.
But wifi 6 (ax) has been around for a while now. So much so, that wifi 6E is about to get released. If folks should wait for wifi 6E then they might as well wait for wifi 7 and so on.
The budget end standalone wifi 6 routers (eg from TP Link) can be purchased for as low as £100, so no reason why ISPs can get on the wifi 6 bandwagon now and start getting custom routers built.
What? Wifi 6E isn’t about to be released, it was announced recently, we most likely won’t see actual products for next few years, they have to be designed and manfactured, not to mention not being backward compatible (2,4ghz radios may be left behind in favor for 5ghz/6ghz combination).
Wifi 6 routers and client are still not really present in market, there are more options but people are still using wifi 4/5, hell you can still buy routers/access point with 100mbs port and wifi 4, or Dell Inspiron laptop with 100mbs port…
Do wake up Marek:
https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/asus-just-unveiled-the-first-router-that-supports-next-gen-wi-fi-6e-connections-rog-rapture-gt-axe11000/
Yep the first wifi 6E router, the Asus GT-AXE11000, will be released in Dec 2020.
“although it could be argued that those who live in apartments don’t have quite the same WiFi challenges as people who live in houses”
I would argue the opposite. Those in dense housing suffer from WiFi interference from all directions on all the main bands. I would also argue that those in smaller dwellings are more likely to achieve good Wifi coverage from the router. Those in larger dwellings are better off with separate WiFi (eg. Mesh).
Hyperoptics and similar ISPs simply do not have the purchasing power of the big ISPs and therefore while they may seek the highest specification possible it has to be within the price point needed relevant with customer branding. Chasing the top of the technology costs money until the relevant chips are readily available and fall in price.
Therefore this late 2019 unit is now probably well established in production and fits their current customer/marketing requirements. They are up against the likes of BT able to rent (BT Complete) or sell (BT Whole Home) which BT will be buying in at very low cost and meet the needs of most homes/devices/uses.
Nice to see this NSB unit can be wall mounted.
argue though
I just wish in this day off age they offered routers with a 2.5gb port or evan a spf+ port so we dont have to change routers if they go over 1gb speed !
I’d have to agree.
My home LAN backbone is now 10G because generic SFP+ modules are now £16-25. 2.5G is now turning up on domestic network appliances and motherboards.
Asus RT-AX89X
@Bob
How does 10G at home help your day to day?
Are you running a data centre!!!
Joking apart 10G domestic is round the corner.
Though I’m honestly not seeing the use for it unless we all going into permanent shielding and need to have holographic parties as a means of maintaining social ‘contact’.
haha @A Builder
Eh. I just supplied my own high performance router from day one. I don’t take their phone package. What I save on line rental and not paying for the phone add-on pays for a cheap unlimited SIM-only contract – and that’s my phone in and out of the house. (I’m a Hyperoptic customer, in case that wasn’t obvious. Happily had 100Mb, then took 150Mb when they offered that.)
There are some anomalies here
1) 892.11ac is 5Ghz only so the 2.4Ghz is either n or a non standard modification which needs compatible clients for the additional features.
2) 1024 QAM comes with 802.11ax (WiFi 6), AC only goes as far as 256, so again 1024 will only be supported by non standard clients.
802.11ax hasnt actually been fully ratified yet even though silicon is widespread. Last time I looked it was due for ratification in November
“2) 1024 QAM comes with 802.11ax (WiFi 6), AC only goes as far as 256, so again 1024 will only be supported by non standard clients.”
Wrong. 1024 QAM has been available on wifi AC for a long time. 4×4 AC clients such as Asus PCE-AC88 already support this, as do many 4×4 wifi AC routers.
https://www.asus.com/uk/Networking/PCE-AC88/specifications/
No.1 is just a facet of how I wrote it, but in the spec sheet above this is correctly apportioned. As for no.2, as Lorne alludes 802.11ac can in fact do 1024QAM and a fair few routers do ship with that, although admittedly it’s somewhat of a non-standard extension.
Hyperoptic ditched Swedish Tilgin in favour of a all Chinese CPE line up???
https://fccid.io/2ADZRHA140WB/User-Manual/Users-Manual-4624993
The FCC submission was made by Nokia Shanghai Bell Co. Ltd, despite the supposedly Finnish brand it is effectively a China Communist Party controlled State Owned Enterprise installed with a Party Secretary who is also the Chairman on the board.
Nokia Shanghai Bell is far more obscure than the like of ZTE and Huawei, and has a direct link to the Chinese government. Do the UK consumers really want that?
http://www.nokia-sbell.com/staticpage/index?page=CompanySurvey
What chipset is in the Nokia HA-140W-B based on?
That’s nice and all bad God it looks ugly
Looks like a bootleg Plusnet router