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difference in Nighthawk M2 MR2100 & M1 MR1100
What is the difference between MR2100 & MR1100
Hi AML1618
Thank you for your interest.
Nighthawk M2 Mobile Router (MR2100)
- LTE CAT 20, DL support up to 2Gbps speeds
- 3GPP, Rel. 14
- 5CA with 20 simultaneous Downlink layers
- 4x4 MIMO
- 256QAM DL / 64QAM UL CA 3C, 7C
- 11ac Dual band dual concurrent
Nighthawk M1 Mobile Router (MR1100)
- LTE CAT 16, DL support up to 1Gbps speeds
- 3GPP, Rel. 12
- 4CA with 10 simultaneous Downlink layers
- 4x4 MIMO
- 256QAM DL / 64QAM UL CA 3C, 7C
- 11ac Dual band dual concurrent
Regards,
Blanca
Community Team
I disagree with you that I'd have to max out an M1's capabilities before an M2 is going to help - that makes no sense. M1 supports only 4CA, M2 supports 5CA. M1 has CAT16 LTE modem, M2 has CAT20. More carrier aggregation, and faster, newer LTE modem both will help with speed. Both, average speed and max speed attainable. Same way older phones with CAT6 LTE are getting much slower speeds in the exact same area than phones CAT12 LTE modems....There are several threads right here, on Netgear forums, where people who already have M2 say they get much faster speeds than with M1. It has nothing to do with utilization % of the max theoretical speed of the modem.
Blanca_O - you can run, but you can't hide.
"M1 supports only 4CA, M2 supports 5CA."
The M2 could have 5000CA. If you are not using all 4CA on the M1, the M2 will not go faster than the M1. The cell tower gives the same data pipes to the M1 and M2.
For example, your current cell tower supports 2CA. M1 negociates 2CA with it. That's the limit. Connecting a 5000CA M2 will not go faster than the M1 in this situation. In other words, you would have to use all of the M1's capabilities to the max before a M2 will help increase speeds. You have to use all the M1's tricks CA, LAA, etc to get that max speed.
It all depends on your carrier and cell tower. Where I live in rural United States our cell towers do not support CA yet (or LAA, or 5G, etc)
As for the faster modem in the M2, the M1 modem is plenty fast. 1000Mbps fast. We get 20-50Mbps in our area. An M2 is not going to help much here. But it still warrants a M1 vs M2 side by side speedtest. M1 vs M2 connected to same cell tower to see how they fare. Is the faster M2 modem 0-2% faster? 10% faster? If M1 vs M2 is that close in speed it is hard for normal everyday users to recognize that small speed difference. For example, a web page that loads 3% faster is not noticeable to a normal user.