BigBlue

Passthrough == Bridge mode. I haven't had any success with a USB drive on the Nighthawk. I can do it on my Asus router but it requires SMBv1 protocol, which is outdated and insecure so I'd rather not.

Yes, I'm running mine through an external router too. I have it set up in bridge mode to make that work because it didn't seem like the ethernet port on the M1 was live in normal mode. Do you know if you can still connect an external USB hard drive and share it through the M1 with it in bridge mode?

I purchased a Nighthawk M1 (MR1100). It is working far better for me than the Explore was working. Very consistent so far. And I'm getting speeds up to the same as my Pixel 3 cell phone gets, so that's 2-3 times better than the Mobley. Happy so far...

I returned the Explore. Was too inconsistent to be useful to me. For as low-tech as the Mobley is (and even having some problems over time) it is far more reliable than this Explore. I may look at the Netgear LB1120/2120 or Nighthawk M1 instead.

This Explore is really inconsistent. Speeds have been all over the place today and many connections keep getting disrupted (like a web page loading partially and then stopping). I'll give it one more chance with an external antenna but if it doesn't stay consistent I'm returning it. I'd much rather have a consistent network connection of 15Mb/s than a randomly failing connection of 30Mb/s.

I swapped the SIM back over to the Explore to test again tonight. This time it acted differently. I checked the broadband status and it showed better signal and was definitely connected to LTE (LTE-4 or something?). Now the Explore is getting roughly 2x what the Mobley was getting just before swapping. That's more like it. Boy, that locked SIM/PUK thing was a pain initially (yesterday). Glad I was still able to get the code.

Thanks for the info. That is the understanding I had before ordering the Explore, which is why I was so surprised at the awful performance. I'll have to go back through the settings, because I don't recall seeing the LTE stuff. Thanks for the link to the guide.

I've had the Mobley and ATT $20 plan for a couple years now. It works well, but I can get well over 2X speeds from my phone so I figured I'd get a different device that can do carrier aggregation. The Unite Explore (Netgear AC815S) seems like a popular replacement. I got mine and got it set up but the speeds are horrible compared to the Mobley. Instead of 18-25Mb/s I am getting under 6 and it seems very laggy. What could be going wrong? I'm using it in the same location and position as the Mobley for testing.