That will be because the device as a whole isn’t new. They are just sticking a new higher category LTE card in it. The LTE card in them is separate from the main board.

I expect at some point they’ll put in the extra work to do a new main board and refresh the product properly. It is also entirely possible than the hardware on the main board isn’t capable of routing at over 100M, so it need probably more than just a new Ethernet port.

It because the embedded CPU they are using (Qualcomm QCA9531) only has a 10/100 ethernet on it. To be precise it has five 10/100 ports. It also has a WiFi that can go faster, and it rings a bell that earlier versions offered connecting to it using WiFi, but that seems to not be mentioned in the specs for the latest versions.

Product specification here

https://mikrotik.com/product/sxt_lte6_kit

Qualcomm web page for the CPU with specifications here

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/qca9531

So basically they are going to have to redo the device with a better/different CPU to get beyond 100Mbps with wired Ethernet from it. Though as before most people who need to resort to one of these are likely to be chuffed to bits with a 100/50 internet connection. The majority that most people can hope for at the moment is 80/20 and only a small percentage will actually get that.

I wonder whether they support Ethernet bonding on the SXT LTE hardware ?

There is definitely support in RouterOS, but I couldn't find anything to say whether the SXT LTE can do it on its two ports.

Not really an issue for me, my LTE tops out at ~80MB.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I wonder whether they support Ethernet bonding on the SXT LTE hardware ?

There is definitely support in RouterOS, but I couldn't find anything to say whether the SXT LTE can do it on its two ports.

Not really an issue for me, my LTE tops out at ~80MB.

802.3ad bonding is a software thing in the OS. It is only a "hardware" thing on switches and even then it's actually a software thing in the switch OS. So the short answer is you almost certainly create a bond given support in a suitable switch.

On the other hand what most people fail to understand about ethernet bonding is that a single connection will always make use of a single link in the bond. So a single device on the network will only ever get 100Mbps, you would need a second device to get to 200Mbps.

This limitation is generally not that important when creating switch to switch interlinks or when connecting servers to switches because it is a reasonable assumption that you will have multiple connections going over the links so the speed limit on the individual link is not so important. I would note this limitation with ethernet bonding is why Microsoft created multichannel SMB.

I imagine the hardware will need to be redone for a 5G version however as a 100Mbps limit would be suboptimal.