Huawei offers a new wireless LTE CPE B612 with powerful LTE modem recently. The B612 CPE supports LTE Advanced Cat6 with up to 300 MBit/s in the downlink and up to 50 MBit/s in the uplink, which is similar to the predecessor Huawei E5186 and B525 technically. A special feature compared to the predecessor model is the support for 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology. The router also offers a telephone function and connections for external LTE antennas, which are common specs for the Huawei LTE routers. Here now in some countries, the Huawei B612 LTE CPE is already available.
Huawei B612: design and comparison
The Huawei B612 looks like a classic router, there is no special design or visual highlights. The case is held in matt white plastic. On the front several LEDs show the operating status, on the back you will find the connections.
But where can you roughly classify the Huawei B612 compared to other Huawei LTE router models? One thing is clear: the Huawei B618 with 600 MBit/s and 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology has a much more powerful modem, but puts the focus much more on the body design and has fewer connections. The Huawei B715 LTE router can also use much higher speeds than the B612 at 450 MBit/s, but does not use 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology. The B715 also has the most connections in the comparison with B612 and B618.
Huawei B612: Specifications
As we know, Huawei had presented two sub-models for Huawei B612. We suppose there will be more models available in near future, just like the Huawei B593 LTE CPE. The Huawei B612 offers a LTE Cat6 modem for up to 300 MBit/s in the downlink. In addition to 4 × 4 MIMO antenna technology, 2CC CA (dual channel bundling) is also supported. In addition to FDD LTE, TDD LTE is supported, so the router is very universal. The following LTE frequency bands are supported in detail as below:
Huawei B612s-25d support:
* LTE: B1/B3/B7/B8/B20/B38/B40/B41(2545~2655MHz)/B42/B43
* DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/HSPA/WCDMA: B1/B8
* EDGE/GPRS/GSM: B2/B3/B5/B8
* 4*4 MIMO：B3/B7/B20/B38/B40/B41/B42/B43
Huawei B612s-51d support:
* LTE: B2/B4/B5/B7/B41(2545~2655MHz)
* DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/HSPA/WCDMA: B1/B2/B5
* EDGE/GPRS/GSM: B2/B3/B5/B8
The WLAN module of the Huawei B612 operates both in the frequency range around 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and supports the 802.11ac standard. For connection to computer and game console, there are also four RJ45 Ethernet LAN ports on the back of the router. If you want, you can also use one of the four LAN ports as a WAN connection, ie an external modem can be connected there. The internal mobile modem is then disabled and you can use the router as a normal wireless access point.
On the back you will find other connections besides the RJ45 LAN ports. On the one hand, there is the RJ11 connection for an analogue telephone, because the B612 supports telephone connections. On the other hand there are two SMA connections for an external LTE MIMO antenna, the connections are well protected under a cover.
Huawei B612: availability
Here now the Huawei B612 is only available for few network provider in Poland and Chile, and the online retailers don’t have this new LTE CPE available. We suppose it would be available soon around the beginning of 2018, just like the predecessor huawei LTE router. We will take further test on this router once we get it. And we would also inform the availability if we have news from 4gltemall.com.