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Forum Discussion
Orbi RKB53 global differences
Is there any difference between Orbi RBK53 sold in the US and in Europe? Any differences in supported bands, interference etc.? Or are they interchangable? Planning on buying in US and using in Norwa...
steinmr wrote:
Is there any difference between Orbi RBK53 sold in the US and in Europe? Any differences in supported bands, interference etc.? Or are they interchangable? Planning on buying in US and using in Norway.
There definitely are differences in radio frequency use between the US and other countries. The US does not allow use of the 2.4G bands 12,13, 14 for example. And, there are different restrictions on 5G frequencies.
There are a whole bunch of parameters that have the word "region" in them. Telnet into the Orbi and type "nvram show | grep region" (no quotes)
I have absolutely no idea if they can be changed safely, or what to change them to.
Thank you so much for the help from both of you.
It would seem then, that at the very best the hardware itself is identical, but the european/us settings might be locked in software. I guess Netgear are the only ones that can answer if that is actually the case. I worry that this kind of change might not be officially supported anyways.
Is there any chance that Netgear employees answer questions here?
Unless it's region locked and it's hard-coded in HW chip, installing a new firmware version for EU region will allow Orbi to pick/set the right region. It's just a profile of which channels to enable or disable for a given region.
Just talked to Netgear support, and according to them, the device is identical in all markets, except for the power plug, which is no problem to fix with an adapter. So then it seems like it would work.
As you say, worst case, I can flash the firmware, but there seems to be only a single global firmware for download.
So, it seems like like I can safely buy this device in US (and get almost half price off).
Thank you for your help.
If you buy from USA, you may not get a 220v power adapter with the unit if your in a EU region that has 220v power.
