How easy is it to get out of the contract? My experience of Three Customer Service so far is not encouraging.

If you get to the Returns policy through my link, it says how to do it. (Despite what it says in the sales blurm about being returned new. I've never had to return anything to them.

Equally, how often do ordinary people post on forums about non-problematic returns to any reputable company? It's just not something people do except in reply to someone who had a problem.

I have a vague memory of asking their CS back in an 2019 what would be the position if I bought the earlier version, and the reply was as long as the router was undamaged and the packaging OK, then no problem. Bin the SIM but have to pay for any data used. I guess that would have been at their 3-2-1 rate which would be expensive if you used much.

You'd need to ask them really, to get the answer to that.

Maybe a better idea would be this router from Amazon with your current Three SIM? Easy enough to return to Amazon.

Though that still wouldn't solve the bridge mode question. It might handle a backup setup, (from the product description). Maybe not.

Perhaps best to forget my suggestions! (:

As for load balancing, I think you need to be talking something like Draytek stuff. Or is your router similar?

That Amazon router looks a bit pricey for what it is and I think it is only 2.4ghz band. The Asus I have does load balancing or failover between USB stick and normal WAN and works I have tried it OR two modems (bridge) where you assign the 2nd WAN to an ethernet port (haven't tried) except with 2 routers and the Asus complained of double nat and IP conflicts which is a whole different ball game.

I will test this Huawei dongle (due Thursday) first, then have a think.

You don't need a bridge mode to avoid IP conflicts, you just need a router where you can set the LAN IP to something different to your existing LAN that the Asus router manages. If you're just using it for failover then the double NAT won't cause any problems, and - with the exception of Three - your mobile data connection sits behind NAT anyway.

Interesting, the Asus tries to create a different subnet when in load balancing mode as it detects an IP conflict on the WAN and recommends a different sub net.

I read double nat can cause some secure sites to not connect and was trying to avoid this.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I read double nat can cause some secure sites to not connect and was trying to avoid this.

Nope, I've had no problems with double NAT for outbound connections.

If you use O2/Vodafone/EE or any of the virtual networks (Tesco, GiffGaff, Lebara etc) you will ALWAYS be behind CGNAT. With Three you can mostly get a public IP, but this won't be the case forever, as IPv4 is exhausted.

It is highly possible you have poor signal, which is why I posted the cellmapper maps on the weekend. You need a reliable way of testing, which these dongles do not achieve.

To do that you need to buy something more modern, either a new phone handset (e.g. the cheap OnePlus Nord for £370 on Amazon, which even does 5G) and put the SIM in that. I think the Asus would work (for backup) if you plugged the phone into the Asus USB port using the charging cable.

Edited by jchamier (Tue 06-Oct-20 09:52:46)

I have the OnePlus 8 Pro, the Nord being much more recent, and really like it. I recommend the brand.

I frequently tether to it acting as a hotspot, with no problems. In fact, making this post has given me a simple idea to help with in-car navigation and hands-free. Currently I cannot have the two concurrently as the car doesn't support Android, only Apple.

As it is my only phone, (no landline), it is inconvenient to connect to the USB port of my laptop, or to my "resting" ASUS RT-N66U which is upstairs.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I have the OnePlus 8 Pro, the Nord being much more recent, and really like it.

I sold my OnePlus 7 and bought the Nord a month ago. I also have fixed line broadband. I only have a PAYG service in the Nord, which currently is a Vodafone, giving around 20 to 25 Mbps most of the day. (Three around here is about 9 to 15 Mbps, EE is around 40 Mbps).

One of the good features of the (European) Nord model is that it supports all the frequency bands that are planned for use in Europe, and this includes 5G (NR in NonStandAlone mode)

Edited by jchamier (Tue 06-Oct-20 13:34:47)

I paid £15 for my Nokia Lumia 530 Windows phone and it has a 3G hotspot from Carphone warehouse new! 370 for a phone is a lot of dosh.

Got my EE SIM today and getting about 10mbps on 3g, red light on 4g service restricted. Had to put in my phone before I could get 3g to work. Haven't topped it up as waiting for o2 data SIM to try and E3372 dongle.