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Pre April Nighthawk and band 14 and 46
Will the pre April 2018 - version 6112B - AT&T Nighthawk get bands 14 and 46 enabled via firmware? I see that hardware is the same as the newer 6420B version. I just bought a new hotspot but it...
It seems like there is some confusion here about the models of AT&T M1 Nighthawk LTE Mobile Hotspot Router. So I will try and explain the different SKU and the differences between them.
Netgear has 4 SKUs for AT&T M1 and they are: MR1100-1A1NAS, MR1100ABS-1A1NAS, MR1100-2A1NAS and MR1100ABS-2A1NAS.
Main Consumer SKU
AT&T Business SKU
Main Consumer SKU
AT&T Business SKU
Netgear SKU ID
MR1100-1A1NAS
MR1100ABS-1A1NAS
MR1100-2A1NAS
MR1100ABS-2A1NAS
WPS
Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Not Supported
USB tether
Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Not Supported
Ethernet tether
Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Not Supported
Ethernet Offloading
Supported & Disabled
Supported & Enabled
Supported & Disabled
Supported & Enabled
USB thumb drive and SD Card
Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Not Supported
1500/1430 byte MTU selection dropdown box
Not Supported
Supported & 1430
Not Supported
Supported & 1430
Band 14
Not Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Supported
Also the AT&T M1 does not support B46 only B14 was added to the 2A1NAS SKUs there will be no firmware updates available for 1A1NAS to support B14. The B14 needed hardware change to support FirstNet B14 properly that is why HW was changed. So I am pretty sure going forward the all the new units Netgear ships will be the 2A1NAS SKU units.
Well, that's just bonkers. What a great way to piss off customers. Why is there no information about different submodels when you try and order the device. I'll have to check my box/unit when I get home to see which one I ended up with.
FYI, this is completely contrary to the FCC filing documents for the MR1100 with regard to Band 14 which clearly indicates that it CAN be enabled with a firmware update.
So later this year when AT&T releases the "5G" version of the Nighthawk with band 46 (which the Samsung S9 already gets in Chicago for exmaple). Are they really going to release a Rev3 of the product? That's completely asinine
If you go to this thread
Go to the FCC
And read the permissive change documents (see attached).
I smell a class action lawsuit (-: Not that I'm the litigious sort. But seriously, I just bought it, it was over priced at $200, and the firmware is still very buggy and unstable. And my product has likely already been obsoleted.
-Jonathan
Yup, my "new" MR1100 from 02/21/2018 is: MR1100-1A1NAS (SKU 6112B) H/W: 1.0
So this device may never get Band 14 nor 46. Of course, that's unlikely to present any real issue as AT&T rarely parks hotspots on 700MHz, it will be at least a year or two (or more) until Band 14 comes to my area (NJ), and who knows when or if band 46 will ever get here. By the time these bands are actually available there will be some shiny new hotspot on the market.
That said, my new AT&T ZTE Velocity 2 already does Band 14 for what its worth. This device is much smaller, more stable, and only slightly slower at present. A bit less battery life but at least it doesn't crash/hang/reboot at least once per day while running on battery.
Given that the FCC only approved the new version of the MR1100 in March, I wonder how long it will take AT&T to clear its legacy inventory? Awefully suspicious that AT&T discontinued the legacy unlimited plan and is phasing out new hotspots on unlimited service plans at the same time.
I still like my MR1100, hopefully Netgear continues to make firmware improvements to make the unit more stable, run cooler, have better battery life, better Wifi range, and user band selection. My new Velocity 2 can only do one Wifi band at a time (2.4 or 5.8) but it has about twice the range of the MR1100 on 5.8GHz.