Hope I haven't fell in the fire with a Huawei dongle, seems almost impossible to find firmware updates. Found windows 10 drivers but drawn a blank on firmware.

Maybe that's why it was for sale. Is that model still available new?

Are you sure there is an update?

Huawei had stopped upgrading the Android version on my P10 Lite, which was hardly an old model. It was never going to get Android 10.

It is a fairly old model, available new on Amazon.

Here's a list of firmware I stumbled accross on the Huawei forum created Aug 2019.

https://forum.huawei.com/enterprise/en/huawei-cpe-e3...

I have my eye on another Huawei which is in Box and a newer model. Three used to sell the E3372 but it's out of stock.

Edited by Banger (Thu 24-Sep-20 02:28:30)

In reply to a post by Banger:

Hope I haven't fell in the fire with a Huawei dongle, seems almost impossible to find firmware updates. Found windows 10 drivers but drawn a blank on firmware.

Nope, Huawei only supply firmware to their customers (the ISPs), not end users. This is normal, when they were being sold heavily by all the mobile networks, you never found updated firmware/drivers. Win10 should use its own drivers built in.

They are an obsolete product/concept as they are limited to LTE Category 4 connectivity, which means speeds will be low, but should be faster than 3G. If this was your main connection, I would suggest giving up the USB concept and getting a Netgear Aircard or similar, that is at least Cat 6, or Cat 12.

Been there. Done that. I wanted to use a dongle with my old and trusted Billion router. I went through about three or four different ones, but none of them are up to the job. They would overheat when given a large download to chew on. Training a noisy fan on it helped, but it was no solution.

Plus, most of the fleaBay and Amazon Marketplace sellers had no idea what they were selling, so shipped the versions designed to work with a Windows PC, rather than a router as advertised.

Once I switched to a "proper" router, I got much faster throughput too. To cut a long story short, I signed up for a 30-day plan that included a Huawei B535, then immediately gave my 30 day notice. Total cost to me: £79. The B535 supports band 32, has gigabit ports, and includes very decent internal 2x2 antennae.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Banger:

Well I have returned the above dongle for refund and have a second hand Huawei E3372 on its way to try.

That looks a lot better, it supports B20 (800), B7 (2600), B3 (1800), and 900 which doesn't apply to Three (or EE) in the UK.

Spent an hour on the phone to three technical support and they said any dongle should work. So we will see.

Yes, they state they don't deliberately block anything, it just needs to technically be compatible.

But customer services / front door technical are usually the last to know about network things. (Back room technical are not connected to front door technical!).

I wonder if three have blocked the PAYG sims from 4g or it is the dongle itself. Having said that I tried my Virgin SIM in it and 3g worked but 4g was again restricted. Been doing some investigation and the EE checker says the dongle wont work E3372 but Voda dont seem to have any restrictions so ordered a PAYG sim from them.

Edited by Banger (Sat 26-Sep-20 03:59:39)

Honestly is it worth all this hassle to keep getting something on eBay that’s not working out? I generally say buy once buy right.

Retail stores won’t sell you something that doesn’t work with windows 10 out of the box nowadays, the os is too prevalent.

Is this also not getting 4G?

The Huawei is not here yet just been using the online coverage/device checkers.

I have used 3 PAYG SIMs LTE/4G in phones and in the car SatNav with no trouble.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I wonder if three have blocked the PAYG sims from 4g or it is the dongle itself.

I have about 4 Three PAYG SIMs of various ages, some quite old, as they don't seem to cut them off for no use. They ALL have worked on 4G (LTE) connections in various devices, Motorola Moto E (2nd edition), Google Pixel, OnePlus 7 Pro, OnePlus Nord, iPhone SE, iPhone 8, iPhone XS.

One of them even shows 5G where we have one activated mast (in an industrial estate) on the Nord.

eBay is a nightmare for electronics.

Edited by jchamier (Sat 26-Sep-20 11:18:11)