UOTEK 5G CPE Router with SIM Card Slot, NSA SA WiFi 6 5G Router Dual Band Cellular Modem for Home Office Indoor Wireless Internet Modem

I am 72 years old and am not very tech savvy. I have been using computers since the days of DOS, but never advanced from "user" to computer guru or even hobbyist. I bought this unit because I am moving to a rural area with very few ISPs and those are low speed unless you can pay big monthly fees. I watched a lot of youtube videos and learned about cellular SIM routers. My confidence level was pretty low, as this is pretty low priced for a 5G unit. When I got the unit my confidence dropped even further when I saw that the instructions were VERY brief and not organized in a way that is optimized to the Western mind. However, they are very clear and if you read them over slowly and multiple times, setup is a snap. Reading and understanding the instructions took me about a half hour; set up took about 5 minutes. Really, the system sets up itself. Two things confused and concerned me in the instructions: there was no mention of a setup menu for customization and they referred to the unit as a "hot spot". It is not a hot spot, it is a fully functioning 4G/5G cellular modem and wifi router. There is a comprehensive setup menu that you can change, but it automatically optimizes it to your system. I did not change any settings and am getting excellent speeds. It is truly "plug and play". Install your SIM card BEFORE powering up the unit (I just used the SIM card I took out of my backup cell phone), plug it in and wait a few minutes. Once the lights are on, go to the settings-wifi menu of your screen device and look for "5G_CPE" then select it and go to the URL shown on the instructions and enter the username and you will be taken to the setup menu! This step is only necessary if you have advanced settings you wish to use. Otherwise, skip the setup menu and just start surfing! The wifi coverage is good too. Note that the wifi password is printed on the bottom of the unit. I was a little aprehensive about buying this unit because it did not have a single review, but I also knew how good Amazon's return policy is. So, if you have decent cell coverage at your home and want really low cost internet access, I highly recommend this product.

Ordered this router and it worked for 2 months then just stopped. I've tried almost everything possible to no avail. Router support seems very poor and out of China. Would like to return it for an exchange but of course the window to do this has passed. At this point I'm out $300 with no answers.

Internet availability is very limited in my new house, so I purchased an expensive 5G modem from my wireless carrier, an Inseego FX2000. When it works, the internet is great. I kept having problems with the modem/router dropping, which I thought for the longest time was a compatibility issue between it and my mesh system, so I blamed it on the mesh router. I am using the system in a new home with as many smart features as I can think of and afford, and I was having to reset the internet literally 20 times per month or more. I finally traced the problem to the modem, long story. For various reasons I didn't want to involve my carrier in any change. Enter this Uotek modem. When it arrived, I moved the SIM card from my current modem to this one, hoping to high heaven it would work. Bingo! Within moments I had internet at the same speeds as I had before. I have since reprogrammed everything in the house into my mesh system, so the modem just feeds that via cable. I say that only to say I don't care about the wireless range of the modem. Since that day, I have not had one minute's trouble with my internet, smart home, mesh, TV, or anything else, and it has been well over a month since I installed it. For the price and simplicity of use and installation, I can't recommend this modem enough.

The thing seemed fine and all but it claims in the description it works with Verizon. It does not. It wouldn't work. I ended up spending over an hour on the phone with Verizon for them to confirm no it is not compatible with Verizon

Overall, the build quality of this router seems really good and as long as you have good cell coverage for the SiIM you're using it also works quite well. Overall I am satisfied with this product so far. I've only had it a few days but I have noticed a few issues in the firmware however. On the dashboard screen the status message is in Chinese if you lose cell signal completely. If the signal is good the status message is in English. Although you can read SMS messages in the GU,I there does not appear to be any way to delete them from there. You apparently have to use cumbersome AT commands to do it. While you can do port forwarding in this router , I could not find a way to reserve IP addresses for attached devices so if that happens to change your port forwarding will suddenly stop working. I could not find any way to change the routers IMEI. You can change the MAC address however. That does not appear to be a way to put this router in bridge mode. While the router seems to be working quite well at this moment , I will update this review in a few months to see what the long-term quality of the product is.

I am very pleased with this purchase. This equipment is plug and play and you must have a 5G SIM card with T-Mobile/AT&T to take advantage of the full spectrum. Please do not use a SIM card that is configured for hotspot usage as you will pay for access to the internet. I am using a regular SIM card from one of my phone lines and it connected without any issues whatsoever. Thanks to the seller and company that made this equipment. Will buy from them again. To change the WIFI password, use “islogin.com” on your browser. “admin” is online default password. Move the equipment around your house until you find the position that will give you the best speedy downloads. I uploaded my 5G download speed with ookla speed test. That was awesome, as you can see. Set TTL to 65. This will mask the hotspot detection from T-Mobile/AT&T and will allow the equipment to have a speedy download. It will also help to avoid throttling by spoofing the usage as if from a cell phone.