Smart Bro Prepaid LTE Home WiFi Review - Stable 700MHz LTE Home WiFi?

Smart Communications Inc. has launched their very own LTE Home WiFi this year. It's basically a fixed router single SIM card slot and 700 MHz 4G LTE support.

Meet Smart Bro Prepaid LTE Home WiFi

Priced at PHP 1995, the Smart Bro Prepaid LTE Home WiFi is designed to provide "high-speed" internet at the comfort of your homes.

This is also a more powerful alternative to your traditional pocket WiFi's. How? Smart boasts that since it has Band 28 700MHz LTE, this has wider indoor penetration to "cut thru walls for better experience vs your regular pocket WiFi. That should result to faster and more stable internet connection.

In particular, Smart claims that it has up to 42Mbps speed if you are on an area with 700MHz LTE.

How true is that? Let's see! Here's our review!

Disclaimer: Smart Communications Inc. is an advertiser of this website, but rest is assured of our honest take always.

Unboxing / Accessories

Everything inside the box

The packaging of the this Home WiFi is simple, yet informative. It contains most of the info you need to know about the device. Inside, it comes with the router itself, basic 1A charger, RJ45 to RJ45 cable, two feet for stand, and some paper documents.

Build Quality / Design

What you'll see behind

The router is made out of all polycarbonate plastic material with matte textured finish. It's small in size, lightweight, and minimalist looking.

SIM tray below

In front, you'll find the big Smart Bro logo and the LED indicators for Power, Lan, WiFi, and Signal at left. At the back, you'll see the model number, SSID, IMEI, serial number, and MAC address of the router. There are holes or sockets where you can attach the feet too.

On top, you'll see that there are holes for ventilation. Below there are holes too and you'll find the removable single SIM card tray. There's nothing at left, but you'll find reset button, on / off switch, RJ45 slot, and female power port at right.

Overall, design is compact and easy to use. Build could be a bit better though.

Features

The dashboard

The Smart Bro Prepaid LTE Home WiFi is simple and easy to setup. As a matter of fact, it is plug and play. Just turn on the device, wait for the LED lighting to turn green (decent signal) or blue (best signal), and connect your laptop or mobile devices. You may connect up to 10 devices all at the same time. You can also connect directly to the router using the RJ 45 to RJ45 cable.

To change the password or setup the device according to your liking, you may open the dashboard of the WiFi router using your mobile phone or laptop. How? Just type 192.168.1.1 or www.smartbrosettings.net. The default password is "smartbro". We recommend changing the password for security.

On first try, the  has FREE 10GB data valid for 7 days. But since we are heavy users, it only lasted for 4 days. After that you will need to load your prepaid number and register a promo.

To register a promo, use the message composer at the WiFi dashboard and enter the keyword of the promo you like and send it to 9999.

Note: Finding the mobile number of your SIM is a bit of a hassle though as it is not found inside the box. Our tip is to use the message composer and send a text to your personal mobile number to find out the number of your Smart Bro SIM.

Performance

Top speed we recorded

In terms of speed, it really depends on your area. Personally, I tested it at home (Sta. Mesa Manila) and we got great results. The top download speed we recorded was at 36Mbps with just 18 ms ping!

Average speed in our area

On a regular day, its around 25 to 28Mbp download speed and up to 20Mbps upload speed with less than 20 ms ping!

The lowest speed we recorded in our area

On a rare bad day (at least on our area), it clocked around 12Mbps of download and upload speed.

We also tried it to other houses. In particular, at Riverside Drive Pasig Ortigas Extension where Smart's signal is isn't that great. We still got around 7Mbps of download speed and 5Mbps download speed. Not bad!

When you compare it with traditional DSL plans with 3 to 5Mbps speeds, this is still faster.

Our experience with it is mostly good and stable!

Signal reception is also great and mostly stable. It still has green signal even on bad corners of our house. It could mean that our area possibly have the Band 28 700MHz frequency with better signal penetration even on thick walls.

The router's signal strength is also good. It gave our entire 2 storey apartment with at least 3 bars of signal.

However, it is not possible to add an external antenna to further expand the coverage of the router.

But, overall, our experience is mostly good.

Note 1: We recommend using GIGASURF50 (1GB + 300MB video data and all-net text for 3 days). Then BOOST15 it to add 1GB extra data per day for just PHP 15.

Note 2: Smart Bro Prepad LTE Home WiFi also available at Smart Bro Postpaid Plan 799 with FREE 30-day access to iFlix with just a one-time fee of PHP 1,750.

Pros - Compact portable size, minimalist design, 700MHz LTE for better indoor signal penetration, good WiFi coverage, good speeds in our area, affordable rates

Cons - No built-in batteries, no antenna slot, carrier locked (obviously)

Verdict

Smart Bro Prepaid LTE Home WiFi is a pretty reliable and affordable Home WiFi with 700MHz LTE band. This could be a primary WiFi solution for Filipinos who has no broadband plans yet.

It is also a decent backup WiFi router in case your primary internet is not working. Speed still depends on your location though.

Build / Design - 4
Features - 4
Performance - 4
Average - 4 / 5