MR6500-1A1NAS - Can it be used outside of the US?

[econet]

Hello, I am now staying in South Korea due to business travel. I was wondering if the Netgear MR6500-1A1NAS (AT&T model) can be used on a local carrier.
Local carrier (SK telecom) runs 5G non-standalone network on n78 & 4G network on B1+3+5+7.

I know that Netgear provides a product datasheet, but it has so much false information. I tried to use Netgear MR5100C (Bell Canada version) on the same local carrier network. The product datasheet (https://www.netgear.com/images/datashee ... R5100C.pdf) shows that it supports n78, but I was not able to enable 5G. I could access the 4G network, but carrier aggregation was not enabled so it showed a very slow speed. Of course, I tried to use AT commands and modify band combinations, but I was not able to use 5G. Netgear support team said that MR5100C is a specific version for Canadian carrier Bell, so it might not be fully functional abroad. I think that there is a software limitation that blocks carrier aggregation or EN-DC on an un-approved network, probably due to some kind of FCC rule.

So my question is this. "Can MR6500-1A1NAS (AT&T model) be used on (B1+3+5+7+n78) network?" The product datasheet includes every bands of the local network, but I cannot trust it. Can anybody provide a screenshot of the supported band list on telnet? I want to check that B1,3,5,7 and N78 are listed on that list.

As I know, MR6500-1TLAUS (Australian carrier Telstra version) does not support 'any' band which are not currently used by Telstra, even though the product datasheet listed lots of supported bands.

Currently, I am using local 5G network on Lenovo carbon X1, powered by X55 snapdragon WWAN. It shows great performance (over DL 1Gbps+) on the local 5G network.

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It will be great if I can access 5G network using mobile router MR6500.

Thanks.

[w1lliam]

The datasheet you post is for MR5100C (should be MR5100C-1BNCNS) which has following bands supported -
LTE - B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B12/B13/B17/B25/B29/B30/B38/B41/B66/B71
NR5G - n2/n5/n25/n38/n41/n48/n66/n71/n77/n78

But MR6500-1A1NAS only has following bands supported -
LTE - B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B12/B14/B29/B30/B46/B48/B66
NR5G - n2/n5/n30/n66/n77/n260

Also MR6500-1A1NAS is locked to AT&T, either you are staying with AT&T while traveling, or you need to unlock the device so it can be used with SIM cards from the other carrier, if it does work with destination's country. As you mentioned, SK has n78 and B1/3/5/7 supported, so most likely you can take MR6500-1A1NAS for 4G connection but not NR5G, assuming you have it unlocked.

[econet]

Thanks for quick reply.
As I know, NR78 is subspectrum of NR77.
So I thought that if supported band list include NR77, NR78 must be supported as well.

Maybe I should wait unlocked version of MR6500.

[w1lliam]

Have tried with MR6500-1A1NAS in my country where only n78 is supported and it does not work here.
Also MR5200-100EUS supporting both n77 and n78 does work, you might want to get this device if WiFi6E is not a MUST feature.

[econet]

According to manual, MR5200-100EUS dose not support n78 and B5.
MR5200-100NAS will be a better choice.

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[w1lliam]

This is the information retried from physical device, FYI

[ghjya123]

I've been thinking a lot about this issue.

Even Netgear Commons couldn't solve this problem.

They say you have no choice but to check with your carrier.

I live in Korea and bought MR6500-1TLAUS in Australia.

my environment

Telecommunication company: SKTelecom
Rate plan: 5G rate plan
The mobile phone is also a 5G rate plan, and the SIM using the MR6500 only shares data in the mobile phone main.
5G support frequency: N78 (SKTelecom also supports N78)

My SIM is D-Link DWR-2101 except for MR6500 (uses 5G by entering only ARN)
, Samsung SCR01 (ARN input + forced allocation of 5G frequency by hidden menu)
all normally possible

KT (Korea Telecom) did not test it.

My SIM is fine in both devices, but the MR6500 recognized it as the wrong SIM and had to replace the SIM several times.

I recently replaced the SIM and was able to access the GUI WEB Management site of the MR6500 (Cannot access the GUI site after the SIM is broken)

I hope we can solve this problem together.