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Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot – World’s First Standards-Based Millimeter Wave Mobile 5G Device
The World’s First Millimeter Wave 5G Connection is here, thanks to AT&T! We’ve partnered up to deliver the Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot, the first standards-based mobile 5G network device in th...
This thing is so cool! I have so much trouble and worry when I'm on vacation and don't have good (or safe) WiFi. Perfect to just bring your WiFi with you.
While I like new devices and tech just as much (likely much more) than the average Joe, I just wish my current NIghthawk MR1100 would get more than 60-90Mbit DL and more than 5-15Mbit up.
My Phones (6s, XS Max, Galaxy S7 Edge) routinely get 160-200Mbit DL these days on AT&T in NJ/PA. UL on the XSM is terrible, but that's do to to it's amature antenna design (as is the poor reception compared to my 6s). Uploads on the 6S are about the same as the MR1100, and my Velocity 2 gets DOUBLE the upload speeds of either (usually 20-40Mbit UL).
5G is a marketing ploy/hoax, just like LAA. The range of the broadcast area is so small as to be completely useless. Additionally, on the MR1100, you have to turn off 5.8Ghz Wifi to get it (assuming you're in the 4 to 9 block area in which it's being broadcast) -- what a joke.
The Qualcomm X20 (or perhaps X50 depending on which marketing literature you read) in the MR1100 outclasses my 6S in every possible way. But yet this 4 year old phone runs circles around my MR1100.
Why doesn't anyone make a high quality hotspot that gets great reception, fast speeds, good battery life, and you can still charge it when it gets a little warm (27C)?
At least the 5G Nighthawk isn't a "silent upgrade" the way the Gen2 Band14 Nighthawk was.
5G is a marketing ploy/hoax, just like LAA.
5G can be 1Gbit+ or 1Mbit at your home. In my rural United States area, LAA, carrier aggregation, millimeter wave, etc do not exist. Speed boosts that come to rural areas in the future will be 600MHz-700MHz based. They are simply not going to build out cell towers for GHz solutions in rural areas. GHz signals do not travel far enough to reach rural homes.
Totally agree,
Unfortunately, without strong centralized regulation (monopolies) you end up with the fragmented mess that is the US FCC Spectrum allocation map for cellular phones.
https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/2003-allochrt.pdf
What the need to do is clean house, depricate all of the legacy frequencies and technologies and carve out nice 100+Mhz blocks for each of the three (4?) major carriers. 600-699, 700-799, 800-900 for Tmo, AT&T, and Verizon respectively. These licenses need to be nationwide, and all existing camping legacy technologies can "stuff it." (-:
What most folks in the rest of the world don't understand is how geographically expansive the United States is. With a cell tower every 3 to 10 miles, I cannot imaging how many tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) there must be.
At least you are getting 60-90 Mbit/sec in DL!!
Around a year ago I bought the Netgear AC790 and noticed that both DL and UL speed were terrible compared to my iPhone. With the AC790 I was reaching 30-40 Mbit/sec in both DL and UL, while with the iPhone 6s i was reaching 100-130 Mbit/sec.
Now a year later I have bought the Nighthawk mr1100 and have still the same problem. With my iPhone 8 i reach ~200 Mbit/sec while with the Nighthawk I still reach speeds around 50Mbit/sec.
How come the antenna's are so terrible in these things?? The APN's are the same in both the hotspots as in my phones ...
Hi dnogwat,
Yes, that's the $64K question. Folks with the MR1100 in Austrailian and European versions of the MR1100 get much better speeds on their respective versions than we do. I used to think countries like Finland, for example, just had much better cell networks that we do. But now that the iPhone and many Android phones (Samsung for example) rountinely post 100+ speeds with strong LTE signals, there definately seems to be something fishy.
There's a number of theories:
1) faulty hardware -- seems unlikely since we know the same/similar hardware works better in other countries. And we know the Qualcomm X16 modem in the MR1100 is capable of good speeds when it is in a phone
2) poor software / firmware -- this is probably the most likely culprit. But once again the software on the USA version shouldn't be that much different than the other versions. So one would think that it should be capable of QAM256, 4x4 MIMO, and 3x and 4x CA which Netgear claims, and which seem to be working in other countries
3) poor band selection -- many of us have seen issues with poor band selection on the USA version of the MR1100. And with no way to lock onto better performing bands this can definately impact performance
4) No evidence in the FCC filing that anything faster than QAM16 has been approved / demonstrated on the MR1100. No sure whether this is a paperwork artifact, if it failed the RF tests, or the negotiated rate capabalities were intentionally held back. I'm not an expert in these filings so perhaps it is there and I overlooked it?
So if we assume that the hardware and software are able to perform as intended, this leaves only one other option:
5) Intentional throttling -- Obviously hotspots have the potential to use a lot more cellular data that phones do. Especially one with an Ethernet port that you can setup to provide whole home broadband. On cellular phone plans, hotspot usage is limited to ~10 to 15GB. But on our (no longer offered) unlimited hotspot plans, one can literally use 100's of GB's or even TB's per month.
I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, but I find it very interesting that no hotspots in the United States, on any carrier, really perform that well. You don't see speed test results with 100+ or 200+ DL speeds the way you do with Flagship phones, etc. Let alone LAA DL examples. Similarly there's no press releases / reviews showing these speeds either.
For the new M5 Fusion, there have been a few public tests of ~180 to 190Mbit DL. Which is better. But so far no better than my iPhone XS Max.
Verizon's hotspots are fairly antiquated, and T-Mo's are even worse (sometimes they don't even sell them). Only AT&T seems to routinely release new (and often half baked) hotspots routinely. And there are no/few unlocked third party hotspots and most of these have older chipsets.
It really seems like the carrier / vendor consortium are intentionally limiting hotspot performance in order to prop up Flagship phone speeds here in the US. But that's just my opinion.
- The reason the phones get better speed on ANY carriers network is simple. They know from the IMEI and MAC address of the device exactly what it is and allow service accordingly. My S10+ can pull double what my MR1100 can pull in the same location. That CAN'T be by chance. AT&T (in my case) has to be limiting bandwidth depending on the device. 75 mbps is best download on my MR1100. My S10+ in the same location (my house indoors) gets double the download and about the same upload.
I tend to agree and see similar behavior with regard to my MR1100 and my iPhone XSM. But of course there is no "proof" of this.
Interestings, if you look at the MR1100 FCC filings, it's actually not approved for high level QAM (e.g. 256) nor for 4x4 MIMO. At least I've not found any of this info in the filings.
Clearly the MR1100 can perform well -- in Australia and Scandinavia. Of course each region has a different hardware build, different firmware, different regulatory approvals, and different carriers. So it's a bit apples and oranges.
But we all had so much hope for the MR1100, and it woefully underperforms its specs / potential irrespective of the cause(s). Very sad for $250 (was $199 when I got mine). No way in he-double hock sticks I'd ever shell out >$500 for the "5G" version. At the moment, 5G is just a big of a farse as LAA. Great if you live in the 1 to 2 square block radius it transmits over. But otherwhise completely useless.