Huawei B311 on Three Mobile Broadband

We've had a fault on our landline this weekend which meant we've been tethering all sorts of devices to my Three phone instead. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my 4Gb tethered data limit had been quietly removed! And the entire family are pleasantly surprised that they're getting speeds in the 20-60Mbps range rather than maxing out at 11.5Mbps on our exchange only landline.

I can see from other threads here that people have been junking their landlines and moving to just using the Three tethering instead. This wouldn't be a sensible solution for us as a family since I'd like my mobile phone to stay mobile, there still needs to be internet at home when I'm out, and there looks to be a ten device limit on using it as a hotspot, but it is making me seriously think about the HomeFi offering from Three. I had thought this was way too expensive but the 24-month contract for Unlimited Data at £22/month is very tempting.

I can see that there are some restrictions on the Huawei B311 from Three and wanted to know if these would affect us. I am hoping someone can help me decipher whether these are going to be a problem for us.

At the moment we download around 300Gb/month.
I can count up 23 devices that regularly use the wifi (that's before guests and little used devices get added in occasionally) and I've probably missed some things out.
We have a separate wifi router from our ADSL modem to better deal with our big house with thick stone walls.

LTE Cat 4: 150/50Mbps (FDD)@ 20M BW Data service, LTE DL 2*2 MIMO CSFB, VoIP or VoLTE(2rd release) � DISABLED � this device does not support VOIP when connected to a phone via CAT 5 cable Does this just mean we can't use a normal phone with it? That's fine. Does it mean we can use VOIP calls by other means? In the short term at least we'd probably keep the landline for voice calls anyway (presuming that the fault on the line gets fixed.) Do the other bits mean anything that I ought to be aware of?

Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n I understand this bit at least!
Up to 32 simultaneous users/devices A little limiting but I think we could cope - but how would it interact with an external wifi router? Or would it not allow us to use an external wifi router? [Edited to add: "bridge mode" is the term I was forgetting here. Can I use this router in bridge mode so a separate router does all the wifi stuff instead?]
1 POTS 1 GE What does this mean please?
1 SMA external antenna optional. I presume this is just to ensure better 4G connection?

Also edited to add: or can I use the Three HomeFi SIM in a different 4G router that will meet our needs better? I don't mind buying decent hardware.

Thanks for any insight you can give!

Edited by kadi (Mon 04-Feb-19 11:18:10)

Why not just join in with the already active thread? As it's all answered there for you anyway.

In reply to a post by kadi:

Also edited to add: or can I use the Three HomeFi SIM in a different 4G router that will meet our needs better? I don't mind buying decent hardware.

Yes, but you have a choice. See how well the 32 connection limit works for you, as I assume that means simultaneous, not "total ever", or if you prefer to use some other MiFi router just get the £20 "phone SIM" instead which will work in anything.

Thanks. Which thread? I've read through tons of stuff and not yet found the exact answers I was after.

I'd recommend the Huawei B525 4G router (see here: Huawei B525s-65a on eBay [this is the best version, the 65a variant covers more LTE band frequencies and they throw in 2 "bunny ear" antennae, you can always install an outdoor 4G antenna to connect to router to boost signal further]). This is a Cat6 router (better than B311), has 4 ethernet ports (instead of 1), and also allows up to 64 devices to connect. You can pair it with the £20 per month unlimited SIM (if that's still on offer). Or just use in in place of the B311.

All details in previous threads below.

If you go for the £22 per month (24 month) deal, I'd try the B311 first - if it doesn't meet your needs, then I'd recommend the B525, and just use the SIM in that instead. Good Luck!

EDIT: you can use the RJ11 phone port on B525 (& presumably B311?) to connect a phone, you can either use it in VOIP mode, or use any minutes on the SIM card (but may have to configure router's network mode to "3G/4G Auto" instead of "4G Only", as B525 is not officially supported by Three for VoLTE [Voice Over LTE/4G], so has to drop from 4G to 3G to make & receive calls - I also found I had to turn off Three voicemail by dialling ##002# from phone connected to RJ11 otherwise it would kick-in before I could answer phone). You could even use both SIM minutes and VOIP, but to do that you connect one phone to router's RJ11 to use SIM minutes, and you'd have to use a VOIP adapter box (e.g.: Grandstream HT802 2 Port VoIP Analogue Telephone Adaptor) to connect to RJ45 ethernet port & connect phone to VOIP adapter.
You may need a BT-to-RJ11 adapter to connect a phone (e.g. BT-to-RJ11) to either router or VOIP adapter - depending on if your phone handset or base station uses RJ11 already, or the older BT-style connectors. Hope this helps.

Edited by AdamInTheSticks (Mon 04-Feb-19 12:37:36)

Thanks, that's super useful at pointing me in the right direction. I'm now thinking I might just pick up a 4G router and try it with the SIM from my phone. I'm already on Three Unlimited Data, at only £17/month somehow, though I'm a bit wary of using it for something it wasn't sold for. That would let me test out the connection under our regular load before committing to another 24-month contract.

In reply to a post by kadi:

I'm already on Three Unlimited Data, at only £17/month somehow, though I'm a bit wary of using it for something it wasn't sold for.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/bulletin...

Thank you! That's good to know!

If the B311 is like the previous B310 that Three used to sell then you can set a DMZ connection from the output of the Three router to the WAN port of another router,

This acts like a bridge with the small overhead of double NAT but allows port forwarding to work.

I have mine plugged into a Asus RT-AC87U. It also means you can take advantage of the better features and wireless range of the Asus router, it also meant I had nothing to change in the configuration of my internal network so no-one noticed any change apart from the much faster speed.

I just disabled the wireless on the Three router as I don't use it.

Edited by onthenet (Mon 04-Feb-19 17:11:50)

In reply to a post by kadi:

We've had a fault on our landline this weekend which meant we've been tethering all sorts of devices to my Three phone instead. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my 4Gb tethered data limit had been quietly removed! And the entire family are pleasantly surprised that they're getting speeds in the 20-60Mbps range rather than maxing out at 11.5Mbps on our exchange only landline.

I can see from other threads here that people have been junking their landlines and moving to just using the Three tethering instead. This wouldn't be a sensible solution for us as a family since I'd like my mobile phone to stay mobile, there still needs to be internet at home when I'm out, and there looks to be a ten device limit on using it as a hotspot, but it is making me seriously think about the HomeFi offering from Three. I had thought this was way too expensive but the 24-month contract for Unlimited Data at £22/month is very tempting.

I can see that there are some restrictions on the Huawei B311 from Three and wanted to know if these would affect us. I am hoping someone can help me decipher whether these are going to be a problem for us.

At the moment we download around 300Gb/month.
I can count up 23 devices that regularly use the wifi (that's before guests and little used devices get added in occasionally) and I've probably missed some things out.
We have a separate wifi router from our ADSL modem to better deal with our big house with thick stone walls.

LTE Cat 4: 150/50Mbps (FDD)@ 20M BW Data service, LTE DL 2*2 MIMO CSFB, VoIP or VoLTE(2rd release) � DISABLED � this device does not support VOIP when connected to a phone via CAT 5 cable Does this just mean we can't use a normal phone with it? That's fine. Does it mean we can use VOIP calls by other means? In the short term at least we'd probably keep the landline for voice calls anyway (presuming that the fault on the line gets fixed.) Do the other bits mean anything that I ought to be aware of?

Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n I understand this bit at least!
Up to 32 simultaneous users/devices A little limiting but I think we could cope - but how would it interact with an external wifi router? Or would it not allow us to use an external wifi router? [Edited to add: "bridge mode" is the term I was forgetting here. Can I use this router in bridge mode so a separate router does all the wifi stuff instead?]
1 POTS 1 GE What does this mean please?
1 SMA external antenna optional. I presume this is just to ensure better 4G connection?

Also edited to add: or can I use the Three HomeFi SIM in a different 4G router that will meet our needs better? I don't mind buying decent hardware.

Thanks for any insight you can give!

Leech away like crazy been leeching over 200gb each month since 2017 not even one word from three took out another sim contract AYCE for £11 home broadband only using 600gb + no issues cancel your home broadband.