I recently purchased this router from Amazon and I am awaiting a nice sunny day to play about with it on my roof. Must say, it is a dinky little thing and will be easy to mount on the pole I put up last week. I set it up in my bedroom to test out (must say the explanations about whether to us the WAN or LAN are non existent) and even behind 3ft thick stone walls in a very low elevation I achieved (varied a lot!) between 10 and 30 meg download so I am hoping for great things for outdoor mounting. Discovered also that my current provider EE does not transmit from both cell towers near me, only one of them. I am using Giff Gaff sim for testing purposes as it runs on O2 network which IS transmitted from both towers. One is less than a mile away and the other (much higher elevation) is approx 4.5 miles away. Will keep you informed!

@nickappleby

Жыл бұрын

Hi Ian - I hope you get it installed soon - I have mine installed now - just on an outside wall as I don't need it on the roof. Was getting around 400Mbps download when first installed outdoors compared to 250Mbps indoors but need to find time to do speed tests over a period of time. Upload was greatly improved from 10Mbps to 40Mbps when the MC889 unit was moved outdoors. This is on 3 Mobile on their unlimited SIM tarrif.

@iansyme3535

Жыл бұрын

@@nickappleby I certainly hope it will soundly best the BT speed of 20+ mb/sec with the chances of FTTP coming to our village anytime soon very remote. Starink is an option but not cheap! Can get a 2yr contract data only sim from O2 for £28 a month ... Will keep you updated.

@desislavkuzmanov

Жыл бұрын

@@iansyme3535 Hi, how is your router performing outdoors? I'm in a similar situation to you, my villa is in a very remote area, with no direct line of sight with the only tower that can reach me. My regular TP-Link LTE router and my phone make between 2-3 and 8-9mbs most of the time. That is outside, inside we don't even have a signal. I'm hoping the ZTE can get us to 10-15mbs at least.

@iansyme3535

Жыл бұрын

@@desislavkuzmanov Read ALL my comments and replies from Nick Appleby....

@Komboss

4 ай бұрын

Is it any better than your previous routers? The ones that you mentioned in the other comment.

Hey Nick, thanks for your configuration video! I'm confused on whether or not I should use bridge mode. I have the mc889 and an h360p for home wifi combination. From what I see mc889 does not have wlan anyway, so why the need for bridge mode on it? I heard from other reviewers that enabling it causes connection issues when the mc889 decides to switch bands.

Thanks Nick for the review , I am thinking of getting one of amazon uk to be used with 3. do you recommend ?( I had in the pas indoors like vn007 the zte 801a and the huawei pro2 ).

@nickappleby

Жыл бұрын

Hi Alan - I would recommend it over getting an indoor 5G router and external 5G antenna on the assumption that the router with built-in antennas is going where you have a better signal and it means you can have the internal box a longer distance away from the outdoor location because it is using Ethernet cable rather than antenna cables where you you to deal with signal loss. www.3grouterstore.co.uk/product/zte-mc889-outdoor-5g-router-with-indoor-wifi6/ Why not buy from an alternative supplier who can provide support like 3G Router Store

@albanfilesalban9601

Жыл бұрын

@@nickappleby Thanks for the website , I will have a look ( price is ok as well compared with other places )

Nick, I installed this router on my roof and after 24hrs of testing it will be going back to Amazon. Best download I saw was 33mb/sec at 3am but mostly hovers around low to mid twenties. Disapointing. This is despite showing good signal level both via the ZTE app and on the signal leds on the router itself. Seems to be very little difference in signal level no matter which way it is pointing. Not at all directional which is a complaint I see levied at many other antennae. I even see drops down to 8-10 meg at certain times so for the moment I will be keeping my landline. 😒😒

@nickappleby

Жыл бұрын

You are correct - it is not directional and I don't think it is advertised as such but it's main benefit is being able to install the router with the built-in antennas outdoors where there is a stronger signal comparted to having a 5G router indoors with an external 5G antenna and dealing with signal loss along multiple antenna cables, especially with 3ft thick walls. Also - another misconception is that a 5G router will always give the same speeds as a 5G iphone - here is a link that provides information about the problem with this comparison. www.5gantenna.co.uk/why-is-my-5g-router-slower-than-my-5g-iphone/ If you already have a fairly decent wired broadband speed and only have access to 4G on three mobile then you may as well stick to your wired service. Another common issue that I come across is people using a three SIM because it is the cheapest for unlimited data, and then not testing with other networks which might provide a much better speed, because then the cost will be alot higher for the service and speeds customers want - so they are focussed on the price but want the same speed as other networks potentially offer. Hopefully you will get 5G soon and can switch - but 5G isn't always as fast as people think - I was in Leeds City centre and my iphone was connected to EE 5G and my download speed was only 12Mbps compared to around 80Mbps when I forced it to 4G

@iansyme3535

Жыл бұрын

@@nickappleby Thanks for the information Nick. Bit of a head scratch all this 5G stuff! When it will be adopted more rurally nationwide who knows .... At the moment will stick to my 20-23meg land line download speed and if I want high speed would install Starlink as my neighbour is delighted with his and poorest he gets is 75mb but mostly 100-130mb/sec. Keep up the good work!

I received my router on Monday and tried to follow your steps in the video but I'm not winning at all could it be that my router and sim cards are not activated? I'm slowly starting to give up now on Rain 😭

@nickappleby

8 ай бұрын

Hi - in most cases just insert your SIM card- if it O2, EE, Vodafone or 3 and it’s a monthly contract SIM then just powering it up will work with zero configuration and connect the outdoor router to the indoor unit with the second Ethernet cable from the POE injector and connect to the WiFi using the default WiFi password - you can download the ZTE app for your phone which might make it easier

@nataliamdashe309

8 ай бұрын

@@nickappleby Thank you so much for getting back to me

@nickappleby

8 ай бұрын

@@nataliamdashe309 no problem

Helo zte mc889 what is password ?