Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2, Smarthome 5G Dual Band Router, Wi-Fi 6 Plus, Connects 64 Devices, Ulta-Fast connection in Med-Large Homes + 2 Year Warranty

CPE Pro 2 improves on the original and a great Home Broadband solution, especially in a rural spot!
I live in a rural area, where fibre broadband cannot get better than 25Mbps download speed, with upload of around 5Mbps – just about going out of date in terms of what’s required (for WFH, gaming, 4K streaming etc). I wanted something better, with the arrival of a next-gen games console and the desire to download 50gb games.I decided to invest in a 5G Home Broadband plan directly with a leading UK network, and they sent me the original CPE Pro. It was good, great in fact, but when I found out this had already been released and I’d gotten old tech for £70 a month (18 month contract) and £100 up front, I was not particularly happy! So I cancelled that contract whilst I could and bought this, along with a 5G Unlimited SIM only plan (the Home Broadband was capped at 1TB, but this SIM only deal is truly uncapped with no fair usage policy, so even better!). I now pay only £33 a month, although the up front cost was £379 instead of £100. Over the 18 month period that will save me £369 and I have the latest tech and truly unlimited data! Not to mention my chosen music streaming service included as a benefit, saving me a further £180 over 18 months.Anyway, the device itself. The Huawei CPE Pro 2, is fantastic. The original was fantastic, but this smaller model boosts performance by more than 10%, in both upload and download speed. I’m not actually in a 5G area just yet, so I’m using a 4G signal, which as I sit here at my desk RIGHT NEXT TO the CPE Pro 2 and run a speed test on my iPhone 12 Pro (same network, 5G enabled SIM also on 4G signal), I get 3.1Mbps download and 5.0Mbps upload speed, with a ping of 61ms. The CPE Pro 2, delivers 100Mbps+ download and 10Mbps upload with a ping of 20ms. Perfect for handling everything I intend to throw at it. I’ve been using this set up for a couple of months now, and spent a week with the CPE Pro 2 instead of the original CPE Pro. That was giving me around 80Mbps download at the top end, with an average download of 6-8Mbps. This just shows the latest hardware is much better. It’s also smaller and also silent. This model has a fan inside but I can’t hear it for trying. It does not have the input for an external antenna, which the CPE Pro did, but that’s no problem given the better performance it delivers. All of my testing has been via WiFi and not ethernet – I’m saving that for my console but just expect a more consistent performance.In addition, I use 4x Huawei Q2 Pro, and 1x Huawei Q2 Pro Satellite devices to create a mesh network around the house. This means I now get almost the same signal as the main router gives me, at both ends of the house, throughout upstairs and in the garden. This additional hardware was SO simply to set up and covers what were previously significant blackspots, with almost no loss of strength.The Huawei Smart Home app for iOS is great too, allows you to keep an eye on how your network is doing, how it’s being used and good diagnostic tools. It’s also really simple to set up guest WiFi and have parental control over individual devices if you need it.This set up handles 3 of us working from home, 4K streaming on the TV, 4x Amazon Echo devices, a number of iPads/iPhones and also games consoles – many simultaneously. It really is a very capable set up, all driven by the CPE Pro 2 bringing in a strong signal in the first place. Worth every penny, and certainly worth testing even if you think your 4G signal by phone is not great, as you can see, I get 20x the speed my phone can achieve – most likely owing to the device being a dedicated one for converting mobile signal to WiFi, and larger than the iPhone. The CPE Pro 2 is really light too.I’m really looking forward to the day it catches 5G signal as that gets closer, currently 150m up the road!

4x speed improvement, much more stable signal!
Well they say a picture says a thousand words, my speed has quadrupled, my ping is lower, the signal is much more stable AND no more packet loss! Yes the upload is slower but will gladly make that trade-off every day of the week. I’m not even in an ‘official’ 5g network area but right on the outskirts (on the Three network).Don’t have any WiFi 6 devices to comment on the new WiFi standard which promises to be pretty impressive, but picked up some Cat7 ethernet cable and was up and running a few minutes after unboxing the router. Simply pop in your 5g SIM card, make a note of the password etc on the base of your router, power it up and plug in your ethernet cable if you’re using one.All in all over the moon!Edit: Has been a couple of days and the signal just keeps getting better – have seen speeds of 150Mbps. Downloading games and streaming is just night and day different from my old 4G router. Amazed.

Does the job, but the telephone socket doesn’t work
Works fine, although it needed me to set up a new APN profile (Talkmobile, in spite of being part of Vodafone, doesn’t seem to set itself up automatically.I wasn’t really expecting the phone socket to work, in fact I wasn’t expecting a phone socket at all. However, not only is there one, but a RJ11 to BT plug lead is supplied, which led to my thinking I was getting a bonus. In fact the phone just gives engaged signal.As this is £50 more expensive than the ZTE MC888 5G router I’d suggest that folk buy the ZTE – does the same job and provides a phone option as well.

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