Hi, had anyone tested the new ZTE G5B? I had tried looking for the specification online but I don't think it's that quite accurate.

Heard of the Snapdragon based modem works better with the current Ericsson infrastructure compared to chinese chipsets.

As andrekua2 said before their ZTE MC801A from Celcom that is based on SDX55 wasn't that good. ZTE MC801A was released on 14 Nov 2019, so hopefully it is better for the newer generation products. Still, looking online for specs of the ZTE G5B there are a lot of different spec lists. I would trust the specs if it comes with a more official looking PDF file. The specs for the H153-381 is more widely known. I think I'm leaning more to ZTE G5B with our current ericsson infrastructure. If issues surfaced during the 2 years contract period, do complaint through MCMC and get a replacement.

After the contract period ends, or even before you guys can refer to videos on youtube to mod external sma antenna ports to replace the internal antenna. The PH 5G home wifi community seems quite active in their modding of the H153-381. Can refer to some youtube videos for that. As for the ZTE G5B, I haven't found a specific website or any posts with mods to it. But if the ZTE MC888 that are similar in form factor can be modded, I would bet the ZTE G5B will also be possible to be modded.

ZTE G5B might also be called MC888B, also it is very similar to a normal MC888. The difference are the new 'AI' antenna inside the ZTE G5B for better signals, the exterior looks identical.

The rationale for choosing the H153-381 based on the Balong 5000 would be better suited with the 2nd 5G network using Huawei and ZTE systems. But by then you should get a better modem with higher carrier aggregation. The upcoming SDX75 5G module is capable of 5CA, I think both the ZTE G5B and H153-381 are theoretically capable of 2CA. Routers based on X75 are already available now but the Quectel RM551e-GL 5G module (SDX75) is still in the engineering sample phase.








Pics sourced from router-mods.co.uk/product/zte-mc888-5g-cpe-router-modification-services/

Another factor to take into account is carrier aggregation, starting from Snapdragon X60 onwards the modems are capable of combining multiple bands to achieve faster speeds just like 4G did.

Snapdragon X62 120MHz / 2CA
Snapdragon X65 300MHz / 4CA
Snapdragon X75 1000MHz / 5CA

The Balong 5000 in the Huawei H153-381 comes in at 200MHz of bandwidth with support of 2CC.

I think the X62 may be able to do a maximum of N28 (20MHz) + N78 (100MHz), while the Balong 5000 can do N78 (100MHz) + N78(100MHz).

Looking online the bandwidth assigned to each bands are tower specific, your mileage may vary.











Here are the bands in use in Malaysia excluding mmWave not supported by these routers.

Yeah their own 5G network will be using Huawei systems in the future.

I would also lean towards Huawei for now, factoring in the higher available 200MHz 2CC bandwidth.

Looking for other user feedback online, seems like there are no glaring issues with either of the routers provided. An improvement would be finding a cost effective solution to offload the wifi from the router to another access point.

Carrier aggregation is the ability of connecting to multiple 5G bands ie: n28 + n78 / n78 + n78 .

I don't think it's related to connecting between telcos.