Pay as you go minutes, minutes to UK Landlines, UK Mobiles and 0845 and 0870 numbers excluding Channel Islands.

While the EE 4G WiFi is designed primarily for travel, it could also suit as a temporary Wi-Fi solution when your home Wi-Fi is down or yet to be installed, since there’s no setup required and it’s available on 30-day plans (as well as some longer plans). Setup This being a mobile broadband router it also has a battery, specifically a 6,460mAh one. While that’s not the biggest battery we’ve ever seen in a mobile broadband device, it is significantly bigger than most smartphone batteries, so it will last longer than using your phone to tether would, especially as providing a Wi-Fi network is all this does, while your phone will be doing lots of other things too.We don’t have much data on EE’s 5G latency, but in 2021 Ookla found the network to have a median 5G latency of 29ms (milliseconds). Limited inclusive minutes to UK Landlines, UK Mobiles and 0845 and 0870 numbers excluding Channel Islands. The EE 4G WiFi is a highly capable 4G mobile broadband device, and one which matches or beats most rival 4G devices. It supports more simultaneous connections than the Three 4G Plus MiFi, and it’s on one of the best possible 4G networks. The EE 4G WiFi is one of EE’s two mobile broadband offerings – the other being the EE 5G WiFi, which is faster, but only if you have a 5G signal, and it also costs more. The EE 5G WiFi is a mobile broadband device that provides instant access to 5G, for all your web-enabled gadgets that don’t have a SIM card of their own.

So it’s a powerful alternative to public Wi-Fi or tethering, allowing you to get your laptop, tablet, or whatever else you have with you connected to the internet even when there’s otherwise no Wi-Fi available. The Netgear Nighthawk M6 is another 5G mobile broadband device, but this one is available on O2. The main difference here is simply the network, and on that front EE is likely to beat O2 for most people, both in terms of coverage and speeds. But the Nighthawk M6 is a strong device, with a 2.4-inch touchscreen to make operating and monitoring it easy. If you don’t need 5G then you could consider the EE 4G WiFi, which is a 4G alternative to the 5G WiFi. So data speeds won’t be as high here, and this tops out at 32 simultaneous connections. But it still has a 30-metre Wi-Fi range, and it’s available on cheaper plans. EE Smart 5G Hub So is the EE 4G WiFi the sensible mobile broadband choice? And is mobile broadband the ideal option for you in the first place? We aim to answer all of that below. How does the EE 4G WiFi work?EE hasn’t revealed what the peak speeds offered by the EE 5G WiFi are. The network used to say that the average speeds offered were 150Mbps, but we can’t see reference to that at the time of writing either. It also has a 30 metre Wi-Fi range, so its Wi-Fi network can reach beyond just one room or vehicle. You could in fact blanket a whole house with Wi-Fi from the EE 4G WiFi, so that’s handy for if you’re using it as a temporary Wi-Fi option in your home or office, or if you visit a holiday home. This means that as long as there’s a 4G (or 3G) signal in the area, you’ll be able to connect anything with Wi-Fi support to the internet. So gadgets such as laptops and tablets can be got online even when there’s no Wi-Fi available.

The same Opensignal results as above also found that EE’s average 5G upload speeds were 16.9Mbps, which again is second only to Three (and a very close second). There’s also an Ethernet port, which you can use to provide an even faster wired connection to something. There only being one Ethernet port is a slight disappointment, but a large number of Ethernet ports is arguably less important for mobile Wi-Fi than for home broadband.That makes this a fairly pricey prospect, but in roughly the same ballpark as the Netgear Nighthawk M6, which is a 5G mobile broadband device that’s available from O2. So it’s competitive with that at least. The top plans here do cost a bit more, and Vodafone offers a rival device for quite a bit less, but then EE’s network also appears to be faster going by third-party tests such as the Opensignal one mentioned above. Alternatives Netgear Nighthawk M6 The Vodafone 5G Mobile Hotspot is of course Vodafone’s rival device, and this has a 2.4-inch touchscreen but supports fewer connections, at 32. Still, Vodafone’s pricing also tends to be lower at the time of writing. EE 4G WiFi If you just need to bring 5G to one location and there’s access to power there, you’d probably be better off with a 5G home broadband device like the EE Smart 5G Hub. This doesn’t have a battery so it needs plugging in, but it’s similarly fast, and designed to be left on 24/7. It also supports 64 simultaneous connections and has two Ethernet ports. Conclusion Pay As You Go: Get access to our 3G and 4G networks. Pre-loaded data allowance last 30 days, 90 days or until you have used the data. Allowances don’t roll over. Once you’ve reached your data allowance, you will need to buy a new data add-on. UK use only. Personal use only. Subject to availability.

Still, this should be fast enough for most use cases, and being on EE is to its benefit, as EE is the UK’s fastest 4G network going by most third-party test results. Router features The EE 4G WiFi can get up to 32 devices online. That’s in line with many rival products (some of which will be discussed below under the ‘Alternatives’ heading), and more than some. It should also be more than enough for most situations where mobile broadband is needed. The EE 4G WiFi then is the more affordable choice if you want to bring Wi-Fi to all your gadgets when out and about. And given that 4G coverage is far more widespread than 5G, you wouldn’t always benefit from a faster 5G model anyway.Exactly how long it lasts will depend on how many devices you connect to it and how much data you’re pumping over its network, but it will likely see you through most journeys or days out. Plans Assuming you have unrestricted speeds, the limiting factor is likely to be EE’s network rather than the EE 5G WiFi hardware. Not that the network is bad, but the ceiling on mobile broadband devices tends to be higher than mobile networks can consistently reach. Perhaps that’s because your speeds will in part depend on your plan. We’ll discuss plans in more detail further down, but essentially some plans give you unrestricted speeds, while others top out at 100Mbps, so that’s worth being aware of.