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Comment by jwr

11 hours ago

The 5G max outdoor looks very good and seems to be a direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series. I wonder about the antenna gain, though, the Mikrotik certainly looks more impressive.

(I've been using Mikrotik LHG LTE6 kit devices for years now)

6 comments

jwr

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Doohickey-d  10 hours ago

Antenna gain isn't everything: I've set up the LTE6 for people, and in some cases I was able to get more speed in the same location with the latest iPhone.

In locations where you're at the edge of coverage, and your phone is not getting anything at all, it's great.

I sometimes suspected that the modem in these LTE / 5G routers is less well tuned and tested with various network than what you have e.g. in an iPhone.

  • tecleandor  4 hours ago

    Of course it's faster!

    The Mikrotik LTE6 device is a Cat.6 LTE device, so up to 300/50Mbits, and since some time ago, all iPhones are Cat.20 and 5G and all that stuff.

    But that's not the only important thing. The frequency band support for the modem is very important. Not all networks nor even cell phone antennas work on the same frequencies, so even when connecting to antennas of the same company, depending on the antenna you connect, it'll have different bands enabled depending on the hardware or the connectivity they have there.

    You have to check the specs for you modem [0][1] and see what bands are supported, what bands are supported in the antenna your connecting to [2]... Depending on the category of your device [3], and the channels that are allowed to be used at the same time, the congestion, the interference, and... it can happen than a consumer phone downloads faster than a dedicated industrial modem, if the available frequencies aren't the most favorable.

    --

      0: https://mikrotik.com/product/lhg_lte6_kit#product_specification
  1: https://www.apple.com/iphone/cellular/
  2: https://www.cellmapper.net
  3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-UTRA#User_Equipment_(UE)_categories

  • nicolaslem  9 hours ago

    This is my experience as well. Unless you actually need a directional antenna, an iPhone will be faster and more reliable than dedicated hardware.

kkapelon  10 hours ago

> direct competitor to the pretty good Mikrotik LHG series

Is there a Mikrotik 5G version though? I am still waiting for that.

  • Jnr  4 hours ago

    There is this now https://mikrotik.com/product/atl_5g_r16

    • cge  3 hours ago

      That device is bafflingly LTE cat20 with 2Gbps downlink, and then has LAN connectivity only through a single 1Gbps ethernet port.

      Actually, it seems one of the advantages of the new Ubiquiti devices over Teltonika/Mikrotik/Gl.iNet is that they actually have 10 Gbps SFP+ and 2.5 Gbps ethernet ports.