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Huawei B535 & Huawei CPE PRO Comparison

mOrt

Casual Member
Hello :)

(I've added a TLDR at the bottom if no one wants to read my waffle!)

I've been suffering with poor ADSL speeds for 4 years due to where we live and it never really crossed my mind to look in to 4G/5G as my giffgaff speed had never been better than the 15mb ADSL speed.

But then I got a new car which I put a Three SIM in as I just wanted a lump 20GB that woudln't expire for 24 months…and that instantly got 45mb.

So I bought a CPE Pro V2, CPE Pro V1 and B535 to test side by side on giffgaff, EE, Three & Smarty to see what the best solution was for an ADSL replacement.

I definitely can't get 5G so the CPE Pro V2 has gone back as with no external 4G antenna it seemed pointless keeping it.

The CPE Pro V1 manages to get 130mb on Smarty, 40mb on EE but my giffgaff SIM won't connect to the internet at all regardless of what network settings I try. But to get the best speed it means finding the perfect position for the router which seems like it will be a huge pain as at the moment the best speed is it sat in the middle of the floor upstairs.

So I'm now trying out the B535 with a Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0002 antenna. This does work with my giffgaff SIM (unlike the CPE Pro V1) and it gets a very strong signal looking at the numbers…but it seems to max out around 45mb.

Without the antenna the RSRQ/RSRP/RSI/SINR all significantly worsen, but the speed is pretty much the same at 40-45mb on giffgaff.

The Smarty SIM in the B535 seems to hover between 40-50mb but putting it in to the CPE Pro V1 next to it gets 120-130mb instantly. Is the CPE Pro V1 that much better than the B535 even with the external antenna?

I was hoping the B535 + antenna would be best so I could mount the antenna outside and run the cable to our media cupboard where the B535 could live.

Thanks!

TLDR; CPE Pro V1 is massively outperforming a B535 with Poynting XPOL antenna using a Smarty SIM, is this normal as I expected the B535 + Poynting to be as good as if not better?
 
Yes, b535 is not that brilliant.
With the B818 I was getting 180/60 on EE, whereas with B535 I was only getting 60/60 max. Both with the same directional antenna you have. The key is in the lte cat technology and how many bands they can aggregate.
The b535 is cat7, b818 is cat19, probably same as your cpe pro.
 
Ah sounds like the B535 might be going back then! I assumed it wouldn't have any issue on 4G but it definitely seems to be topping out under 50mb with or without the antenna even when the signal it is getting is very good.

Is it worth using the B818 with external antenna? I noticed it has the flimsy newer connectors which I'm not keen on but if it can make a significant difference I'll get some connector convertors to use the XPOL.
 
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Generally speaking, what is the best 4G router to go for then?

I'm not fussed about wifi as if I can connect an external antenna the router then it can sit in a cupboard that runs ethernet cabling to every room I need it in and I have a decent wifi rou
 
I haven't tried that many and it really depends. Usually the higher lte cat tbe better, at least in urban areas.

B818 (4G only) is one of the better ones, Netgear Nighthawk series is also very good and Mikrotik have a nice lte12 one, too which I guess is good.

Your 5G router though should also be very good at 4G/lte, if it supports external antennas I'd stitk to that, with the added bonus of being more future-proof.

Having said that, I'm now using an external Huawei CPE Win and am very happy with it, being in EE's 5G range.
 
Hello :)

(I've added a TLDR at the bottom if no one wants to read my waffle!)

I've been suffering with poor ADSL speeds for 4 years due to where we live and it never really crossed my mind to look in to 4G/5G as my giffgaff speed had never been better than the 15mb ADSL speed.

But then I got a new car which I put a Three SIM in as I just wanted a lump 20GB that woudln't expire for 24 months…and that instantly got 45mb.

So I bought a CPE Pro V2, CPE Pro V1 and B535 to test side by side on giffgaff, EE, Three & Smarty to see what the best solution was for an ADSL replacement.

I definitely can't get 5G so the CPE Pro V2 has gone back as with no external 4G antenna it seemed pointless keeping it.

The CPE Pro V1 manages to get 130mb on Smarty, 40mb on EE but my giffgaff SIM won't connect to the internet at all regardless of what network settings I try. But to get the best speed it means finding the perfect position for the router which seems like it will be a huge pain as at the moment the best speed is it sat in the middle of the floor upstairs.

So I'm now trying out the B535 with a Poynting 4G-XPOL-A0002 antenna. This does work with my giffgaff SIM (unlike the CPE Pro V1) and it gets a very strong signal looking at the numbers…but it seems to max out around 45mb.

Without the antenna the RSRQ/RSRP/RSI/SINR all significantly worsen, but the speed is pretty much the same at 40-45mb on giffgaff.

The Smarty SIM in the B535 seems to hover between 40-50mb but putting it in to the CPE Pro V1 next to it gets 120-130mb instantly. Is the CPE Pro V1 that much better than the B535 even with the external antenna?

I was hoping the B535 + antenna would be best so I could mount the antenna outside and run the cable to our media cupboard where the B535 could live.

Thanks!

TLDR; CPE Pro V1 is massively outperforming a B535 with Poynting XPOL antenna using a Smarty SIM, is this normal as I expected the B535 + Poynting to be as good as if not better?
Could I possibly ask?
Did you not try the CPE PRO 2?
I believe it can do 4G very well without an Ariel
 
Sounds like you're both benefitting from Three's B32 (both B818 and CPE Pro support it) which provides a good chunk of additional downlink speed that is relatively unused because not that many devices support it - only really in the past few years has it become a band that devices have included.
You'll be getting a good lion share of it at the moment, though I'd be cautious and say over-time I'd expect the speeds to drop as more devices are out there that do support it...

@mOrt the CPE v1 does have external antenna connectors, however it's my belief from what I've seen/read that those are only for the 5G signal, not the 4G one - 4G uses the internal antennas only.

Edit: also, be wary of planning a long run of coax to hide away a router, the length (and quality) of the cable can/does have a large bearing on the signals for long runs (I believe >5m is generally not recommended)
 
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Could I possibly ask?
Did you not try the CPE PRO 2?
I believe it can do 4G very well without an Ariel

I tried the V2 first but didnt' realise the external antenna was for 5G only. So from a 4G point of view it was exactly the same as the V1 (in terms of speed) but it was £380 vs £250 for the V1. So I didb't see much point keeping it.
 
Sounds like you're both benefitting from Three's B32 (both B818 and CPE Pro support it) which provides a good chunk of additional downlink speed that is relatively unused because not that many devices support it - only really in the past few years has it become a band that devices have included.
You'll be getting a good lion share of it at the moment, though I'd be cautious and say over-time I'd expect the speeds to drop as more devices are out there that do support it...

@mOrt the CPE v1 does have external antenna connectors, however it's my belief from what I've seen/read that those are only for the 5G signal, not the 4G one - 4G uses the internal antennas only.

Edit: also, be wary of planning a long run of coax to hide away a router, the length (and quality) of the cable can/does have a large bearing on the signals for long runs (I believe >5m is generally not recommended)
Makes sense the more I read about B32. There's a significant difference between the B535 and CPE Pro but with the CPE Pro only having 5G external antenna it seems pointless to keep it.

Not sure how long the XPOL A0002 cable is but it would be long enough for where we need it to go.
 
I haven't tried that many and it really depends. Usually the higher lte cat tbe better, at least in urban areas.

B818 (4G only) is one of the better ones, Netgear Nighthawk series is also very good and Mikrotik have a nice lte12 one, too which I guess is good.

Your 5G router though should also be very good at 4G/lte, if it supports external antennas I'd stitk to that, with the added bonus of being more future-proof.

Having said that, I'm now using an external Huawei CPE Win and am very happy with it, being in EE's 5G range.
Thanks, I'll have a look at the Nighthawk and Mikrotik.

If the CPE Pro external antenna was 4G as well as 5G I would just keep that. But it seems the internal 4G antenna are the only option for 4G on the router.

I'm really just after a router I can use with an external antenna as I can run a mesh if the wifi is poor. The Asus router I have at the moment just about egts the wifi around the house so I'm happy to use that for wifi and whatever 4G router purely as an put for an external signal
 
The other thing I'd comment on is while signal metric values might read higher or lower when testing using an antenna or not, it's vital that the same cell (mast sector) is connected to, and also on the same bands - if the cell or band changes, then you can't compare the values.
Also, good signal metrics doesn't always mean good speeds. The metrics only measure the RF signal, not throughput. (Though poor RF signal does usually mean the maximum potential throughput is likely to be constrained)
 
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The other thing I'd comment on is while signal metric values might read higher or lower when testing using an antenna or not, it's vital that the same cell (mast sector) is connected to, and also on the same bands - if the cell or band changes, then you can't compare the values.
Also, good signal metrics doesn't always mean good speeds. The metrics only measure the RF signal, not throughput. (Though poor RF signal does usually mean the maximum potential throughput is likely to be constrained)
Whenever I've been testing I've been checking signal metrics as well as download speeds from various places. But as you say, not 100% accurate, hopefully accurate enough to give me an idea of what is the best approach to take though.

I'm going to run the CPE Pro for a couple of days and see how I get on as ultimately the whole point of going for 4G is to replace the ADSL. But if I get drop outs, lost packets, terrible latency and poor performance with multiple devices utilising it then I'll be back to the drawing board!
 
The B535 can only aggregates B20+B32 - and obviously only from the same mast.
B32 is an SDL band (supplimentary downlink) and so it always needs to be paired with another band so that there is an uplink available else it won't connect to 4G. Forcing B32 alone will cause a device to find the next available frequency/technology - 3G in your case - though why it's 10miles away I don't know (unless cellmapper's 3G site positioning isn't accurate/verified, which is more than likely for 3G)
 
Ah thanks for that Gavin, I just don't understand what the issue is with companies selling 4g routers not being able to aggregate to any and all available channels. All 4g routers should just come with 8 antenna.
 
Ah thanks for that Gavin, I just don't understand what the issue is with companies selling 4g routers not being able to aggregate to any and all available channels. All 4g routers should just come with 8 antenna.
If they came with 8 antennas, you'd probably be cheaper building a house next to a mast Buggerlugz.
 
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Ah thanks for that Gavin, I just don't understand what the issue is with companies selling 4g routers not being able to aggregate to any and all available channels. All 4g routers should just come with 8 antenna.
It's the same with phones - different target price points - more bands, technology, CAT levels need more R&D, testing, validation etc, which all pushes up the cost.
 
What model of the CPE Pro V1 do you have?
Keep in mind there are 2 models, one supports more bands than the other. But both support the correct 5G bands here in the UK.
One has WIFI 6 and less bands while the other has AC WIFI and More Bands (International Variant)

I imported mine from HK - Both version were available. I went with the one that had AC WIFI but more band availability. I'm just on the edge of 5G and it needs a network kick to get it working again but on 4G speeds i get are great.
 
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