At today’s Gigabit LTE event in Sydney with Qualcomm, Telstra, Netgear and Ericsson, Netgear brought their latest portable Wi-Fi hotspot the Nighthawk M1, the world’s first Gigabit LTE mobile router, and it’s launching in Australia!
The all new router sports Gigabit speed, USB C charging (Qualcomm Quick charge 2.0) for the device, a 5,040 mAh internal battery, USB A port for charging other devices and media sharing, an SD card slot and a LAN port. There’s not much more you could want in a portable hotspot.
With up to 20 simultaneous connections and support for dual-band concurrent Wi-Fi the Qualcomm x16 chip inside should provide you with all the bandwidth you need to feed those devices, assuming you’re in a Gigabit LTE area. I saw upto 300Mbps transfers on devices attached to the WiFi hotspot.
Alongside the expected functionality of a Hotspot the LAN port affords the Nighthawk M1 a few additional features. Attach the router to a LAN, such as a hotel network, and the device will pass through the connectivity and act as the connection point for all of your gear. This eliminates the need to pair all of your devices to different Wi-Fi networks. Unfortunately, the device has no inbuilt VPN capabilities.
If you connect the Nighthawk M1 to a switch you can use the device as an internet connection to any devices on that LAN. This opens the possibility for using the Nighthawk M1 as a primary internet connection for your home. The big kicker will obviously be how fast Gigabit LTE rolls out and how much data you can get at what price.
Like many high-end home routers, the Nighthawk M1 comes with a supporting app that lets you configure the devices and its many functions. This includes parental controls, configuring guest SSIDs and setting priority access devices. The device is expected to launch in the coming weeks exclusively through Telstra with pricing yet to be advised.
If you’ve got any questions please ask them, I spent quite a bit of time hands on with the device today.
What’s the point of super-fast mobile data when their biggest current plan is 15GB per month (for $55)?
Unless mobile data gets dramatically cheaper, I’m not seeing this as being viable for a home internet connection.
Exciting developments, I expect you would pay a pretty penny for such speed and data allowances?
So Duncan, will you be buying one?