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New Three 4G Hub

Did you end up taking the plunge on the new 4G hub with the above route (i.e. "£59 (1month at £29 + £30 upfront)")?

Half tempted myself but not sure if even £59 is worth it for the likely small speed differences between this and the B535.
Hi adamlewisprice,

A couple of users in the thread below aren't at all impressed with the ZTE router.

Thread Below

Just thought I'd share with you. :)
 
Hi adamlewisprice,

A couple of users in the thread below aren't at all impressed with the ZTE router.

Thread Below

Just thought I'd share with you. :)
Extremely useful to know - thanks very much, TheWeeBear!

Will probably stick with the B535 for the time being then...at least until the B818 or CPE Pro 2 come down in price, though I may be waiting a while!
 
Extremely useful to know - thanks very much, TheWeeBear!

Will probably stick with the B535 for the time being then...at least until the B818 or CPE Pro 2 come down in price, though I may be waiting a while!
Yeah they are a bit pricey now, I had the B818 a while back, it was a good router, got the CPE Pro 2 now.

Patiently waiting for 5G. :rolleyes:

One day! 😊
 
All in good time :)

5G already up and running where I am but can't really justify the router cost to make the most of it. Will be ready to pounce as and when they come down in price though!
 
Did you end up taking the plunge on the new 4G hub with the above route (i.e. "£59 (1month at £29 + £30 upfront)")?

Half tempted myself but not sure if even £59 is worth it for the likely small speed differences between this and the B535.
Nope 👍🏻
 
My guess by now is that this router features 2x2 (2CA) antenna setup but supports 4x4 layers over LTE.

I initially thought it might feature 4x4 (4CA) antenna setup.
Just for clarity, 2x2 or 4x4 (MIMO) isn't CA (carrier aggregation)... Devices can do any number of bands with any number of layers. E.g. 3CA with just 1x1, or a single band with 4x4.
 
I assume the insides look like this? If so, there's clearly 4 (Edit: 5 - I can't count! 4+ground) antenna connectors going to/from the modem... admittedly only two are 'real' antennas and I would guess the other 2 are just silk screened on the board itself, which may hamper things.

16296143715810.jpg
 
Cor, there's not much to that router Gavin.
 
There doesn't need to be does there? All the 4g stuff is done with the modem card, just like a mobile phone. Only needs to have additional stuff to handle the external hardware connections - USB/RJ/ethernet and the internal and external antenna connectors.
 
There doesn't need to be does there? All the 4g stuff is done with the modern card, just like a mobile phone. Only needs to have additional stuff to handle the external hardware connections - USB/RJ/ethernet and the internal and external antenna connectors.
Yes very true.
 
Things are quite interesting with this hub..... I'm reading of bad times for customers in some areas or even of some networks due to antenna design.

Let's just say a Three customer trying to use an external antenna would be wasting time here unless they did some modding of hardware.
I feel like this was done on purpose, God knows why though. I wish they had stuck with the B535 as it seems a lot better in most ways. The WiFi on the B535 leaves a lot to be desired but apart from that it's more than up to the job.
 
It's too old, don't support new LTE versions and lacks support for some bands too I beleive.
Meh, I get that it doesn't have B32, I think they should have replaced it with a B818 or a 618.
 
My guess by now is that this router features 2x2 (2CA) antenna setup but supports 4x4 layers over LTE.

I initially thought it might feature 4x4 (4CA) antenna setup.

Despite this little set back it does pull in some good bandwidth (albeit via Vodafone) I've just downloaded a game and peak speeds where pretty solid at 170-180Mb/s (22MB/s)

The downfall however is that I think the router is struggling to push upload bandwidth over Band 7 (indoor signal likely issue) with my max currently being around 2Mb/s.

I've seen it jump up to 20-30Mb/s but the download was then down to the 50-70Mb/s mark so my guess would be that it fell to lower bands 1+20 that morning.

The possitive to take from this I guess is using external antennas (good quality) wouldn't impact the capability of the LTE modem where it would with other devices such as the B818 (without mod)

Having taken the ZTE apart on day one of receiving it, I can confirm I couldn't see much more than two antennas, I shall have to take it apart again at some point and share some pictures.
just to be sure, what is your HDD's writing speed?
 
Is the 4G signal any worse than that of the B535?

If the WiFi is worse, but it supports better LTE as well as bridge mode, it may be the perfect piece of kit to serve purely as a 4G modem.
 
So this ZTE MF286D is becoming a decent investment now, its doing a pretty good job with a Voxi sim inside it,

3337574652804830-9U9nFbaT.png


Glad to report my uploading issues seem to have sorted themselves too, and online gaming is pretty decent too.
Are these speeds using it's own WiFi?

Not bad if so. I think I'll bite the bullet and purchase shortly.
 
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