Quick comparison update.....

I just cannot get the B535 to perform as well as the MR600. Yes, I’m surprised. Internal or external aerials. I even have a Poynting omni-directional antenna (admittedly still inside the loft that I can wave around!) but I cannot get the B535 to consistently perform in terms of signal stats or speeds. It often drops to 4G only, and stays that way, in exactly the same scenario that the MR600 sticks like glue to 4G+ on 3+20.

Anyway, I’ll keep testing.....

Sounds like the new firmware has made it quite good.

Shame dont know if it does 64 QAM

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by barker04:

I’m really surprised this is so complicated - surely if a cat 6 device cannot do 64QAM then it simply can’t ?

I don't know which LTE Category includes which levels of QAM, but if a device is sold as a certain category it will handle the level of QAM required for that category.

The better category routers are the pocket style ones, e.g. the Netgear MR range, which have Ethernet and WiFi and yes, cost as much as a phone.

MR1 / MR1100:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-MR1100-100EUS-Night...

MR2 / MR:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NETGEAR-Nighthawk-Mobile-Ho...

Are there any with external antenna connections as well as ethernet ports? Really not bothered about wi-fi, but I do want to use a network cable and directional antennas

Millimetre by millimetre of tweaking I can get signal stats on the B535 to match the MR600. RSRQ -3, RSRP -100, RSSI -77, SINR 15 on a beautiful clear morning. 64 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up as evidenced here - speedtest result.

But this router most often defaults to band 20 if left to its own devices, and I’ve had to lock to 3+20 with H-Monitor. If I didn’t have access to band fixing, it’d be returned already.

In reply to a post by hoopla:

Are there any with external antenna connections as well as ethernet ports? Really not bothered about wi-fi, but I do want to use a network cable and directional antennas

All three of the Netgear units have TS-9 antenna connectors, for example here is the page for the M1:
https://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/mobile-broad...

Netgear have also announced the M5 unit for 5G !!
https://www.netgear.co.uk/about/press-releases/2020/...

I've concluded my testing, and while I will likely keep both routers, I have found the MR600 to work best for me. Both routers ran for a week with no problems, and both achieve similar top speeds - but the MR600 has been more consistent with achieving those speeds, and has happily sat on 4G+ the whole time, bands 3+20. The B535 continues to be inconsistent in performance and will try to connect to a single band given the chance.

Using LTE H-Monitor really helps with the B535, and it's frustrating that the MR600 doesn't report cell ID.

I think the beta firmware on the MR600 is really solid, and it appears many issues have been ironed out in the year since the product released. I suspect we will never get new firmware for the B535.

Testing complete.

I bought the B535 recently because the MR600 beta firmware hasn't been working for me.

On the MR600, the band selection does nothing for me. On Three, I can never get anything other than 3,3 no matter what I select, and mostly it's just single band 3.
On EE if I select 7 and none, I can mostly reliably get 7,7, but if I select just about anything else it almost appears random what I get back (often 3,3).

Rebooting the device seems to lose everything and I have to start the whole crazy process over. Do you do anything special to get this to work for you?

On the B535, I have been using the HUA CTRL app on Android to change bands, and this has been working reliably so far...

It has also let me see that it would appear to be SINR in my area that is a problem for me, and I guess why I don't get great speeds. Doesn't seem to matter where I move internal or external antenna, it stays below 10...and fluctuates a lot!

Haven't tried the LTE-H Monitor yet, but thanks for the suggestion. I'll give this a go!

After messing around with LTE-H Monitor for a while I can only say I'm more confused.

Up till now, on EE, 7,7 has given me the best results. I've also now noticed that this was on a tower much further away than others nearby.
I tried to force it to connect to a closer tower by selecting different bands and moving the antenna around, but gave up. If I forced it to connect to a closer tower by picking a band only that tower had, it connected by with appalling speeds.

Because 7 was on that further away tower only (according to cellmapper), I decided to deselect 7 to see if that would make it use a closer tower. Instead, its picked band 1 for both upload and download. I no longer get 4G+ (single connection on band 1 only), but I get triple my download and nearly double my upload. In fact, this is the best speeds I've had on all networks I've tried so far.

Or is this is all based on the fact that its 10.30 pm now and less people are streaming netflix over 4G?
I'll try again tomorrow...I'll also try forcing Band 1 on the MR600 and comparing since I now know it's a magic one!

You’re fighting the mast, which knows load and signal quality on each band. Data you don’t have.

Leave it to automatic.

Yes time of day and big events on TV will show up in speed tests.

I'm sure that's true for a lot of people/areas, but where I am i've only managed to get usable speeds by forcing particular bands. I've been experimenting for the last 3 months with 4G as my Virgin internet has been so terrible since lock down. Auto will give me 1-5MB on pretty much all networks. Manual selection has, up until now, given me 15-30. Tonight I got 60.

I think the only network where auto has got me best results has been Vodafone, bur after tonight's shock jump in bandwidth, I'd be tempted to revisit that thought too.