Netgear 4G LTE Router Gateway/New Plans

[jasonsteele]

I've had the new router for a week.  Where I keep it, LTE Signal strength averages between -103 and -106 RSRP on band 25 (shows one bar on the signal strength indicator), and I'm averaging between 6.5 and 10 Mbps.  Have not dropped signal even once.  Very satisfied with speed and performance considering conditions, and I cannot complain.  Being a tri-band device, I can only see it getting even better once the build out is complete in my area and I can see what it is really capable of.

[cdk]

I've had the new router for a week.  Where I keep it, LTE Signal strength averages between -103 and -106 RSRP on band 25 (shows one bar on the signal strength indicator), and I'm averaging between 6.5 and 10 Mbps.  Have not dropped signal even once.  Very satisfied with speed and performance considering conditions, and I cannot complain.  Being a tri-band device, I can only see it getting even better once the build out is complete in my area and I can see what it is really capable of.

 

How does the signal strength of the router compare with your phones at the same location?

[MacinJosh]

Can someone please get me the FCC ID number off their Netgear 4G LTE Router? Thanks!

[jasonsteele]

How does the signal strength of the router compare with your phones at the same location?

I live in between two towers, the one closest to me has no NV work done and the other one further away is NV complete and broadcasting band 25.  My phone picks up LTE from the tower further away once in a blue moon, but most of the time is latched onto the closer no NV tower. My router has a constant connection to band 25 on the more distant tower.

 

 

Can someone please get me the FCC ID number off their Netgear 4G LTE Router? Thanks!

 

The FCC ID on the router is PY313200235.

[MacinJosh]

I live in between two towers, the one closest to me has no NV work done and the other one further away is NV complete and broadcasting band 25. My phone picks up LTE from the tower further away once in a blue moon, but most of the time is latched onto the closer no NV tower. My router has a constant connection to band 25 on the more distant tower.

 

 

 

The FCC ID on the router is PY313200235.

Thanks!

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[jasonsteele]

ALERT: I received a letter in the mail from Sprint thanking me for being a loyal customer and notifying me of my new 2 yr. contract on the gateway with a $200 ETF.  On the website, the only option is to purchase for $199 outright with no contract...which is what I thought that I had signed up for.  Obviously they had made a mistake, I called customer service and a very pleasant person named Ruby was able to correct the situation with help from a supervisor.  She said it was a glitch and was surprised that it happened.  All is good now

I am not using this gateway as my primary ISP, as I do not want to be a bandwidth abuser.  I merely purchased the gateway and the service because I am a Sprint junkie and wanted to experience tri-band in all its glory without having to ditch my iPhone to do so.  Good times ahead...

[MacinJosh]

ALERT: I received a letter in the mail from Sprint thanking me for being a loyal customer and notifying me of my new 2 yr. contract on the gateway with a $200 ETF. On the website, the only option is to purchase for $199 outright with no contract...which is what I thought that I had signed up for. Obviously they had made a mistake, I called customer service and a very pleasant person named Ruby was able to correct the situation with help from a supervisor. She said it was a glitch and was surprised that it happened. All is good now

I am not using this gateway as my primary ISP, as I do not want to be a bandwidth abuser. I merely purchased the gateway and the service because I am a Sprint junkie and wanted to experience tri-band in all its glory without having to ditch my iPhone to do so. Good times ahead...

Thanks for the update. I'm sure if anyone else has the same thing happen, we'd have jumped out of our skins.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[scubajwd]

$199 for router; $79/mo (30 gb)  +$50 activation; on the surface it seems like a better deal

data wise than getting the Zing with a Peplink 4G router (which I have); but then you can put the Zing

in your pocket when a Starbucks need arises..does this new router have a much better RF

radio than the Zing?

[MacinJosh]

$199 for router; $79/mo (30 gb) +$50 activation; on the surface it seems like a better deal

data wise than getting the Zing with a Peplink 4G router (which I have); but then you can put the Zing

in your pocket when a Starbucks need arises..does this new router have a much better RF

radio than the Zing?

Good question. I'll have to do some research when I have the time and compare the 2. Do you have the FCC ID for the zing so I can look it up easier?

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[4ginnc]

$199 for router; $79/mo (30 gb)  +$50 activation; on the surface it seems like a better deal

data wise than getting the Zing with a Peplink 4G router (which I have); but then you can put the Zing

in your pocket when a Starbucks need arises..does this new router have a much better RF

radio than the Zing?

 

If you could find a Zing on e-bay or somewhere so you don't have to get it on contract, you could do the same thing with the Zing.  I've been looking around a bit and thinking this might be the better option.

[mrknowitall526]

$199 for router; $79/mo (30 gb)  +$50 activation; on the surface it seems like a better deal

data wise than getting the Zing with a Peplink 4G router (which I have); but then you can put the Zing

in your pocket when a Starbucks need arises..does this new router have a much better RF

radio than the Zing?

Last I heard, the 30 gig plan was $109....

[Rocket87]

Last I heard, the 30 gig plan was $109....

 

They are using an mnvo not sprint for the service.

[dnwk]

I guess since this device, that Washington state company will have a lot more business

[MacinJosh]

Ok. I finally looked at the FCC docs for the Gateway. And they did it this way. It's a router utilizing a wireless module using a different FCC ID. That's why I never discovered this device until after Sprint announced it. Talk about secrecy.

 

Anyway, the Max Conducted power is 23.49 dBm for Band 41 with an Antenna Gain of 9.5 dBi. Band 25 is 24.76 dBm with Antenna Gain of 8 dBi, and Band 26 is 24.92 dBm with Antenna Gain of 7.9 dBi.

 

CDMA side of things is:

 

Band Class 1 (PCS) 24.76 dBm average

Band Class 10 (SMR) 24.84 dBm average

Band Class 0 (Cellular) 24.69 dBm average (based on 1xRTT roaming)

[scubajwd]

So, if I'm interpreting your numbers correctly, 8 db gain for Band 25 (the most prevalent band currently) in a fringe or

edge area like my house might succeed in connecting to a faint LTE signal....no?

[MacinJosh]

So, if I'm interpreting your numbers correctly, 8 db gain for Band 25 (the most prevalent band currently) in a fringe or

edge area like my house might succeed in connecting to a faint LTE signal....no?

 

I'm not sure. I don't really know how antenna gain works. But I would think so. I'm not thrilled about the max conducted power on the LTE modem. It's kinda limiting if you ask me, but if antenna gain helps a lot, then it counteracts mediocre RF.

[scubajwd]

How do these numbers compare to my Zing?

[MacinJosh]

How do these numbers compare to my Zing?

I need the FCC ID of the Zing so I can look it up. I always forget to write things down like that.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[scubajwd]

Thanx..Josh...if you find the Zing ID let us know..otherwise back-burner it..

[MacinJosh]

Zing performance

 

Average Conducted:         Antenna Gain:

Band 25-   23.5 dBm             3 dBi

Band 26-   23.5 dBm             5 dBi

Band 41-   23.5 dBm             5 dBi

 

CDMA BC0 - 23.5 dBm         5 dBi

CDMA BC1 - 23.5 dBm         3 dBi

CDMA BC10- 23.5 dBm        5 dBi

[iansltx]

So basically we're looking at a 4.5db gain difference on B41, 6db on B25 and 3db on B26. Plus slightly more Tx power on lower bands. Nothing phenomenally impressive, but enough to bump modulation up a tier in middling reception areas, and definitely the difference between zero service and passable (but not great) in fringe areas, at least for B25 and B41.

 

One thing that these specs don't show offhand is the receive sensitivity for a given modulation type for the devices. Having more room to work with in the desktop router could allow for more sensitive electronics, holding onto a better modulation at a given RSRP. This is independent of the antenna gain difference that I just mentioned.

 

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but hopefully Sprint increases the data allotments on its $50 and $80 tiers as they get more B41 coverage. Compared to VZW HomeFusion, (which works on 700MHz so it's not like they have tons of spectrum to play with) Sprint's 30GB plan is $10 cheaper per month for the same data allotment. But its other plans are $10 cheaper for 40% less data. Granted, Sprint isn't differentiating price-wise between the home router and its mobile hotspots with these plans right now, so that's part of it, but they probably should.

 

If they're holding out for a T-Mobile merger to become competitive here (if the home router silently packs AWS LTE I wouldn't be that taken aback) then that's kind of a shame...unless they're going to really leave VZW and AT&T's LTE home broadband products in the dust with newer plans (remember that Sprint + T-Mobile would be able to drop 10x10 LTE on PCS in a fair number of places, in addition to 5x5 in PCS G and H+/CDMA...that's why I didn't say B4-only or B41-only).

 

At the risk of going to far afield, unlimited home LTE service isn't out of the question in areas where wireline isn't available. It'd have to be speed-capped of course...my parents' latest ISP sells 4M down, 1M up...but that ISP has made the conscious decision to not use LTE in their 700-lower-B (5x5) license for mobile traffic, and as a result they can keep everyone at a better link budget and have closer to the theoretical capacity on the cell. Which lets them offer unlimited LTE with not much spectrum. *shrugs*

[MacinJosh]

...if the home router silently packs AWS LTE I wouldn't be that taken aback...

They wwan module built into the home router doesn't contain AWS LTE, unfortunately. at least, not from what was on the FCC docs.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[iansltx]

They wwan module built into the home router doesn't contain AWS LTE, unfortunately. at least, not from what was on the FCC docs.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

 

I still hold out hope. Remember that the Nexus 4 wasn't FCC cert'd for LTE in band 4 either (then again, it never got re-cert'd).

[MacinJosh]

I still hold out hope. Remember that the Nexus 4 wasn't FCC cert'd for LTE in band 4 either (then again, it never got re-cert'd).

Based on the module, it looks to be changeable in the factory if they didn't solder it to the home router board, so that's the other option for it.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 5S using Tapatalk 2

[JDD]

I just purchased one on Saturday. I am looking for a backup to our T1's in a remote office location that has no other option for a data connection. I installed today and before pluging it into our network router I was logged into the interface of the Netgear LTE router some how it used 25 MB of data, not sure if there was some setting that it needed to pickup from Sprint but I thought this to be a bit extreme.

 

After the install I set as our main data route for about an hour to see how it would handle. With 1 bar of service on the Netgear and 3 bars on my Galaxy S3, my data speed seemed good and similar. I was around 6 meg up and down. I only used about 40 meg in an hour with about 28 PC's and 8 servers. It handled the traffic with no problem. I don't want to run the company on this connection just wanted to check how it would perform for us. I have since set it to load balance for the next two day and then I will have it sit until our main connection goes down. (Easy monthly money for Sprint).

 

I have been over this router top to bottom for settings and configurations. If anyone has questions I will be more than happy to answer.