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Better or rather "proper" 4g router?

unseen

Casual Member
So I've moved recently to an area not covered by BT FTTP so I picked up a Vodafone unlimited sim and the R219z which is umm.. Ok but with me working from home still and various other devices needing access I wanted to get opinions on better options?

Currently looking at either: Huawei B535-333- 4G+ or possibly the TPLink Archer MR600 V2

Looking through the forum just quickly I've not seen much mention of either! Should I be looking at something else or does it also come down to what network? I'm not married to VF at the moment so could change, just trying to figure out Cellmapper to see what covers where we are better, but from phones in the house EE comes in at 47mb Down 1.2 Up the VF Mifi gets anything from 3-12mb down 12-16mb up.

This is all new to me as previously Virgin then FTTP with BT so not really looked at mobile broadband until now.

Any suggestions for different routers welcomed!

Thanks
 
If you are technically minded, a colleague has a mikrotek LTE router ( I think this one https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte_kit) and swears by it. More Nd he is rural & needed a *good* antenna to get a decent connection, but the solution seems to be pretty much bullet proof & now gives him a stable, good enough (30-50Mbps), connection.
 
If you are technically minded, a colleague has a mikrotek LTE router ( I think this one https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte_kit) and swears by it. More Nd he is rural & needed a *good* antenna to get a decent connection, but the solution seems to be pretty much bullet proof & now gives him a stable, good enough (30-50Mbps), connection.
I personally wouldn't have said we were that rural. M44 area but certainly seems to have been missed for 5g but coverage does seem to vary wildly depending on where you are in the house. 3 certainly seems to be poor if my daughters constant complaints are anything to go by! :D
 
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Mikrotik Chateau, or another cat12 router, don't go for anything less.
Looks good but cheapest I've seen is around £150 for one off ebay. I should have mentioned it in my original post, we possibly only need it for 3-4months as we'll be moving again although the options for where we're moving to might mean we'll keep this for a bit until FTTP becomes available there.
 
@unseen the place where you are going to move to next, does it have 5G? If yes, then might as well go for a 5G one now.

Anyway, as per the advice advice, get a cat 12 or better device.
 
@unseen the place where you are going to move to next, does it have 5G? If yes, then might as well go for a 5G one now.

Anyway, as per the advice advice, get a cat 12 or better device.
That's a good question. I'll have a look on cellmapper for the new address.

As it's depending on ebay... On top of the Mikrotik Chateau would you consider the Huawei B818 as well?
 
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That's a good question. I'll have a look on cellmapper for the new address.

As it's depending on ebay... On top of the Mikrotik Chateau would you consider the Huawei B818 as well?

Huawei B818 is excellent, but try to get one with generic firmware. The ones from various ISP can have features disabled.

Why not look at the Unicom 5G one our forum colleague dabigm reviewed? It was £140..

 
Huawei B818 is excellent, but try to get one with generic firmware. The ones from various ISP can have features disabled.

Why not look at the Unicom 5G one our forum colleague dabigm reviewed? It was £140..

I'm assuming there's no "easy" way to flash a B818 to generic or international firmware then?

The Unicom 5g looks good but ideally I'm trying to get something this week (before I get threatened with returning to the office! :eek:)

So far I've looked at a second hand MikroTik Chateau for around 150 or new from amazon for 200.. B818 seems to be an oddball with prices all over the place for something if I'm beginning to understand this area a bit now is higher spec than the Chateau?
 
Hence why I am sticking with a cheap 5G/Cat20 tethered phone (to router) currently until 5G prices come down.
*More likely to have better modem for money.
*Provider/Mast compatibility
*Dual SIM for backup or network variances
*Hopefully better resale value or second use (family)

Accessible high location required (outdoor enclosure preferable). Suitable for home or motorhome.
 
Hence why I am sticking with a cheap 5G/Cat20 tethered phone (to router) currently until 5G prices come down.
*More likely to have better modem for money.
*Provider/Mast compatibility
*Dual SIM for backup or network variances
*Hopefully better resale value or second use (family)

Accessible high location required (outdoor enclosure preferable). Suitable for home or motorhome.
+1 to that
 
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Okay,

Chateau has 3 different versions, LTE12 cheapest version, LTE 18 next version up, 5G about £400 LTE 20.

Cat is the capability of the modem:
Cat 3 100 down 50 up
Cat 4 150 down 50 up
Cat 6 300 down 50 up 2 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 7 300 down 100 up 2 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 9 450 down 3 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 12 600 down 50 up 3 carrier frequency aggregate

There's a mikrotik sxt lte6 here if you want to try and offer the seller a decent amount https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134073961481

It's got 4 days left but nothing to stop you making an offer.

Samsung do a wifi 5g hub: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203866524143
£100 with most sellers, limit of 10 devices according to the description.

Going back to your original options, the cheapest cat12 router is the zte mf286d:

If you are staying with the Vodafone unlimited sim, vodafone advertise 4g on the following frequencies: https://halberdbastion.com/intelligence/mobile-networks/vodafone-uk

B1 (2100 MHz)
B3 (1800 MHz)
B7 (2600 MHz)
B8 (900 MHz)
B20 (800 MHz)
B32 (1500 MHz Suppl. DL)
B38 (2600 MHz)

The ZTE MF286d supports B1/B3/B7/B8/B20/B32 and is capable of 3 Carrier Aggregate across 3 frequencies
 
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Hence why I am sticking with a cheap 5G/Cat20 tethered phone (to router) currently until 5G prices come down.
*More likely to have better modem for money.
*Provider/Mast compatibility
*Dual SIM for backup or network variances
*Hopefully better resale value or second use (family)

Accessible high location required (outdoor enclosure preferable). Suitable for home or motorhome.
Currently trying that option... Forgot I still had an S10+ (thought it'd gone to someone in the family like all old phones seem to do!) so stuck the VF sim in that and so far it's looking like it wasn't the MiFi that was crap but the actual service! Trying it in different rooms and the usual speedtest gets anything from 0.9Mb to 12Mb down but always around 14Mb up whereas my EE Pixel 6 Pro gets 30-45Mb but the upload is only 3Mb.

So I've picked up a GiffGaff sim will try that tomorrow see what that's like and grab a Smarty sim tomorrow but 3 seems to be a very mixed bad signal wise here.
 
Okay,

Chateau has 3 different versions, LTE12 cheapest version, LTE 18 next version up, 5G about £400 LTE 20.

Cat is the capability of the modem:
Cat 3 100 down 50 up
Cat 4 150 down 50 up
Cat 6 300 down 50 up 2 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 7 300 down 100 up 2 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 9 450 down 3 carrier frequency aggregate
Cat 12 600 down 50 up 3 carrier frequency aggregate

There's a mikrotik sxt lte6 here if you want to try and offer the seller a decent amount https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134073961481

It's got 4 days left but nothing to stop you making an offer.

Samsung do a wifi 5g hub: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/203866524143
£100 with most sellers, limit of 10 devices according to the description.

Going back to your original options, the cheapest cat12 router is the zte mf286d:

If you are staying with the Vodafone unlimited sim, vodafone advertise 4g on the following frequencies: https://halberdbastion.com/intelligence/mobile-networks/vodafone-uk

B1 (2100 MHz)
B3 (1800 MHz)
B7 (2600 MHz)
B8 (900 MHz)
B20 (800 MHz)
B32 (1500 MHz Suppl. DL)
B38 (2600 MHz)

The ZTE MF286d supports B1/B3/B7/B8/B20/B32 and is capable of 3 Carrier Aggregate across 3 frequencies
I'll keep an eye on ebay for the Mikrotik Chateau or a "truly" unlocked B818 especially as I'm planning to use this for a while especially if the speeds are better where we're moving to.

As for Vodafone... I'm not completely impressed and compared to what the data shows\ in practice the performance seems pretty poor thankfully I'm only a week in to the contract so if Smarty or something else outperforms it then I'll just swap.
 
I'll keep an eye on ebay for the Mikrotik Chateau or a "truly" unlocked B818 especially as I'm planning to use this for a while especially if the speeds are better where we're moving to.

As for Vodafone... I'm not completely impressed and compared to what the data shows\ in practice the performance seems pretty poor thankfully I'm only a week in to the contract so if Smarty or something else outperforms it then I'll just swap.
A decent router with external antenna can make a huge difference.
 
Thought I'd just add an update (while searching for more information!)

Was watching one Mikrotik Chateau but got beaten to the punch (annoyingly by bloody wifi dropping out! 🤦‍♂️) but did manage to grab a Huawei B818!
It was listed as unlocked and it appears that way although has Optus branding?, certainly works ok with the Smarty sim I grabbed. Currently observations are it's not bad for me and my daughter to work remotely with me using remote desktops and both of us using teams, the odd bubbling mud moment in a call but it sorts itself out. Rest of the family are happy with the connection being stable for the really important stuff (bloody tiktok!)
Only problem I've noticed is it does seem to get worse at night which I guess might be the case if others locally are doing the same thing so being doing a little digging and it seems to lock on to a tower which going off cellmapper shouldn't give me a good signal, is it worth paying for the huaCtrl app to tweak it?
Going forward I think until there's fibre where we're moving to next I'll stick with this and get an external antenna or if the 5G round there is good on the phone maybe look at going to the CPE2 or the 5g chateau.

Thanks for all the advice though!
 
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Pay??? OMG I came over all faint then. :eek:
LTE Inspecteur or LTE-H Monitor for the PC are both free and will enable you to lock bands.
It's well worth taking some time to site the B818 for best signal as it can be fussy. You can use the basic info from the router's system page or better still use one of the above monitor programs on a nearby laptop to watch for the best signal.
 
The Huawei AI Life app has a tool "Find optimal location" that works pretty well. Updates every few seconds so you can find the best position for the router.
 
I'm interested in the 5G Chateau but I think it's just a bit too much money at £500. And only 2 antenna ports is a bit naff. re: huactl app I paid for it, but because I use it regularly. I also found the real-time graphs to be useful. I had used the free one before and decided I'd pay for the full on.e
 
I'm interested in the 5G Chateau but I think it's just a bit too much money at £500. And only 2 antenna ports is a bit naff. re: huactl app I paid for it, but because I use it regularly. I also found the real-time graphs to be useful. I had used the free one before and decided I'd pay for the full on.e

1651580721721.webp


I see 8 antenna ports.
 
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