Three Homefi or something better?

I'm looking at adding a 4G connection to my existing broadband utilizing my existing routers load balancing function and it seems that £20 a month gets you the sim OR £22 a month gets you the homefi and the sim. The homefi looks like its a £100+ item so £48 extra over two years doesn't seem that bad.

My concern is if this homefi might be a bottleneck for traffic. I dont want it to handle devices or provide wifi I just need it to handle the data part of it with my router doing all of the other stuff.

Do I need to spend more to attain better speeds?

The location I will be using it is more rural than where I am now. I did a quick speedtest with my phone in one of the rooms of the property and got a 55mb/15mb result so I'm hoping in the loft space the speed should be improved.

I'm happy to spend money if it'll actually be of benefit but if all I'll gain is the ability to have more users on the devices wifi I really dont need that.

To reply to myself I bought the homefi system with the B311 and it seems that I'd have been better off paying the lump sum for the B525 as without bridge mode I feel this homefi is really struggling.

I need to wait until it is quieter in the day for less 4G traffic to see what it is capable off but when I try to load balance it with my 400mb virgin media connection it's rather tricky and I get lots of failures.

I called Three who gave me £5 credit because of a software bug..... I'll call them back in a few days to cancel completely because I've signed up to the contract that costs a tad more so this will cost me a few quid in the long term.

on it's own it's actually rather responsive. without load balancing it's also rather responsive for a family network.

Post deleted by champagne_charly

The thing that worried me was the B311 Gateway specification that said:

Connectivity.
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

So it won't work running as a 4G gateway connected to a router?

A wi-fi connection is not a lot of use if the device is in the attic to get optimal signal (MIMO but only one external antenna connection). And my phones are connected through a Fritz Box, mostly.

Perhaps I'd be best getting the £20 sim-only and using a better-specced 4G modem. But which?
I do have a spare Huawei 5776 mi-fi but that has no ethernet port at all.

It does kinda work but there is no such thing as a bridge mode.
I had mine hooked into my Asus mesh and it worked okay but it was far better when I got rid of the 311 and bought the 525.

As for the question about unlimited on my phone that wont work because I leave the house and the family stay behind. They'd not be pleased if everytime I went out of the house the internet stopped.

Edited by chriscdotcodotuk (Tue 28-May-19 16:30:39)

Thanks. So does the 525 have bridge mode out of the box, or does it need a firmware hack?

firmware hack.

Basically a 5min job but it does void your warranty and you will need a usb a-a cable.

For me it was worth it as it was a cheaper device and I wasn't bothered about the warranty.

Thanks.
Device ordered.

I have a USBa-a cable, and I have several Huawei devices, none of which have ever given a moment's trouble, so the warranty is not a concern.

Later, I note that the one I bought is described as:

UNLOCKED HUAWEI B525s-23a CAT 6 300MBPS 4G WI-FI ROUTER WITH BRIDGE MODE & VOIP (BLACK)

+ 2 x SMA ANTENNAS

WILL WORK WITH ANY SIM CARD WORLDWIDE

So either the description is wrong, or i won't need to hack it.

I bought this - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FN4BT28

The SMA antennas are definitely NOT for the frequencies I was connecting on as when you kick it over to just the external antennas the signal drops to virtually nothing.

That looks like the one I ordered. Did yours not actually have bridge mode, despite the description?

Yup, I looked through and it wasn't there before i opened it up.

Well, it arrived today. The performance is a bit better with the antennas set to External than to Internal, though Auto seems to leave them on Internal.
However, placement makes more difference to the download speed than it does to the displayed signal level.
As you predicted, it did not have Bridge Mode in the Security menu. It was shipped with firmware 11.232...
I looked at the stuff about taking the device apart, and that didn't seem desirable, so I wondered if it was really necessary: it seems not.
All I did was to go to the Local Update menu item, and select the .bin file that came in the zip.
After a surprisingly long time, it came back in Polish, but with firmware 11.182.... I switched the language back to English and all my other settings seem to have been retained (I haven't done a system reset yet).
The Bridge Mode is there on the list of options.
I wonder if an update to the newer firmware will remove the Bridge Mode again? The auto update says it has the latest firmware, so perhaps it is a different fork.

Edited by hoopla (Sun 02-Jun-19 14:06:41)

I'm thinking I might have to cancel as well. We are getting very poor download speeds with the B311. Using Three's "check coverage" page, and selecting "Three B311" as the device, it says:

"Unfortunately, your device is not compatible.

With a compatible device, you would have access to our 4G network. However, the signal strength may vary, especially when you're indoors.
B311 is not compatible with our 4G network. Browse our 4G devices"

But it was sold as suitable for 4G HomeFi. What is going on?

That's probably a mistake on their part. Its definitely compatible with their 4g network. 800 and 1800mhz. You're just unlucky to live in a place with poor Three signal. Unless there are some underlying issues on their end. Or you need to try different places around your home to see if it improves things.

When i first got my b311 through the post, i placed it on a unit (3ft tall) and got 5mbps. It worried me at first, but put it on another unit at the corner of the room (7ft tall) and it jumped to 80mbps, sometimes 100mbps on a good day.

It appears there is a problem. Three have told me to set the B311 to "3G only" pending an update which should be available within a week. Despite having a good 4G signal here, we are getting faster download speed with 3G than we were with 4G.

Hmm. Sounds like an odd issue. Hope things get sorted for you though!

Mine is a B311. No problem! It shows two different colours for the signal. IIRC the 3G is green. The 4G one I get is a sort of turquoise.

See the Learn More on this Three page. Note:

Connectivity.
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.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 04-Jun-19 18:11:20)