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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...
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.
T-Mobile is claiming a world first with Nokia: The two companies just completed a 5G data transmission on T-Mobile’s 600 MHz commercial network. T-Mobile and Nokia engineers completed the downlink transmission tests using global 5G standards in Spokane, Washington. The “uncarrier” says the tests prove that low-band airwaves will provide 5G coverage across hundreds of square miles from a single tower, which stands in contrast to millimeter wave sites that cover less than a square mile.
One mile = 5280 feet. Millimeter wave transmissions work best at short range and line of sight. In the real world with trees, buildings, vehicles, weather, etc, expect massive slowdowns for every 1000 feet you move away from the cell tower.
The questions for rural areas are what 5G speeds can we expect on low-bands and when will it happen?
(-: Well, not sure about hundreds of square miles, but 10mi x 10mi (or the hexagonal equivalent) might be doable. The bigger issues are handset uplink signal strength and quality (which seems to be getting worse with each new generation of smart phones) and, of course, POP density over such a large area being covered by a single cell tower and its limited backhaul bandwidth. Granted in truly rural locales, the number of POP's per 100sq miles may not as much of a concern -- though with even a handful of clients downloading at hundreds of megabits each, even fiber backbones will quickly become saturated. Not sure if any of the newer phones supporting band 71 will actually transmit at 600Mhz so realistic mobile range may be further limited without a booster.
I live in the rural area and I use a MR1100 with ATT. The ATT site is quite far and even with the 700MHz the throughput is low. TMobile just opened a 5G site 2 miles away but in band 71. Netgear, the 600MHz is a must if you want to penetrate the rural market.