Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
It's a directional antenna (advertised as 65 degree horizontal beam) so I can point it in the general direction of the mast I want to connect to. This should both improve RSRP and increase SINR by attenuating unwanted signals I'm using it with a Taoglas wideband omni (700-6000MHz) and it certainly improves the signal / speed a lot. Like most mobile broadband devices, the Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot is designed to be simple to get up and running. It includes an easy-to-use online interface, so just pop the SIM card in and follow the simple instructions. Beyond that, the Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot also has a 4,500mAh battery, which Vodafone claims offers up to eight hours of life (or possibly up to 8.5 hours – the company has said both). Either way, that’s a lot of life, and enough to keep your gadgets connected all day.
That’s very fast, but it’s also not realistic. Rather, you’ll be limited by what Vodafone’s 5G network is capable of, which itself will vary from location to location, depending on how close you are to a 5G mast, among other factors. The Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot is actually a rebranded ZTE MU5001 5G, but that’s a common practice, with many network-branded devices actually being other gadgets with a new name. This makes it quite a pricey device, but actually still a lot cheaper than its main rival (the EE 5G WiFi). So if you don’t need the features of that (highlighted above), the Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot is probably the better buy. Conclusion
Founded in 1992 to target the emerging mobile computing market, Clove Technology has grown and adapted into what you see today. And then there’s that 2.4-inch screen we mentioned. With a 320 x 240 resolution it’s crisp and clear, and it’s a colour touchscreen, so you can tweak settings as well as viewing the ZTE MU5001 5G’s status and data use. It's a 5G only antenna (the frequency response is advertised as 3.3-3.8Ghz). The biggest chunk of frequency allocation (and therefore throughput) is in band N78. This is especially true for Three who have the largest amount of spectrum in this band and lowest combined in other bands. Band N78 utilisation should also be lower as it's still relatively new in addition to reduced penetration into buildings due to the higher frequency. The Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot is one of a couple of 5G mobile broadband devices available on UK networks, and the only one available on Vodafone at the time of writing.
External antenna connector: Connect the antenna if necessary. E.g. Antenna with TS9 connector, frequency range 600Mhz~6000Mhz. Interfaces include a USB Type-C connector and an RJ45 Ethernet in addition to the Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, which is 2*2 MIMO dual-band compatible and able to support up to 32 users. The Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot has a lot going for it beyond just speed. For one thing, it supports up to 32 simultaneous connections. That means this one little gadget can get up to 32 devices connected to the internet at 5G speeds, all at the same time. The Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot also has an Ethernet port, so you can plug a device into it for a more stable wired connection, and there are two ports for attaching external antennas, to improve its performance – which could be particularly useful if the signal is weak somewhere. Alternatives
The 4,500mAh battery should keep the data flowing for up to 8 hours, depending on usage. Technical Specification All in all, while the Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot doesn’t have the most exciting of designs, it looks fairly good, and importantly it’s small enough not to be too inconvenient to take out with you. Setup That’s a lot slower than 3.8Gbps then, but it’s in line with what you’ll find on some of the UK’s other5G networks, and peak speeds will be a lot higher. Average speeds may well increase over time too, as the network infrastructure improves.
The MU5001 is advertised as 4x4 MIMO for 4G and 5G. There are only two external antenna ports so these will increase the signal but only for 2x2 MIMO. The other MIMO antennas don't have external connectors. Popping the Three SIM in my iPhone and running field test mode revealed that it was using band 3 for LTE. Not sure if it's the ZTE that doesn't like this band or whether the Huawei CPE Pro is doing some magic here. EE seems to be on band 1 LTE which was fine for the ZTE inside my house. As noted above, Vodafone’s results were 105.2Mbps and 107.4Mbps for average and median respectively. That’s not bad though, still topping O2, which achieved an average of 92.3Mbps and a median of 71Mbps in those tests. Plans rak093 @bon I searched for this everywhere and wasn't able to find much. It's a relatively new product so info and discussions are scarce. The only indication I could find was in the Vodafone manual which refers to the TS9 connector frequency range from 600Mhz to 6Ghz.That 5G support is arguably the highlight, as it means connected devices can get fibre-like speeds of potentially well over 100Mbps (as long as you’re in an area with 5G coverage). This is worth noting, not just to point out that you need to fit the battery, but this always needs the battery in even if you plan to leave it switched on and plugged in permanently. It is generally not advised to leave a battery-powered device plugged in permanently. One option would be to attach this to a smart plug and have it switch off for a few hours per day. With the device powered up, setting it up is reasonably simple using the touch screen. The hotspot automatically recognises the SIM, and there were no APN settings to input. Have you got an external antenna? I definitely recommend taking it on a walkabout too if you don’t get a 5G connection straight away.
The Vodafone deal was an amazing bargain. You’d struggle to buy a basic 4G hotspot for this price, and the performance difference is considerable, both from the mobile data and WiFi 6.
ZTE 5G Mobile Wi-Fi Router (MU5001)
The frame is a slightly different colour – more of a grey – and it houses various ports and buttons, such as the power button, the USB-C charging port, antenna ports, and an Ethernet port.
Great Deal 
New Comment