Since the 3G era, the 4G LTE network has passed a long way. It is not uncommon to have a 4G connection that can provide tens of megabits per second of downlink throughput and several megabits per second of uplink throughput. Even if these numbers are much lower than that 4G promises theoretically, the specification is still deeply impressive, the premise is that you may not be able to get a similar rate from a wired broadband connection, depending on your location.
The 4G network is essentially unpredictable. This means that even if in the ideal position, time and environment, the performance of 4G modems is also great, but there is no guarantee that this will be achieved every time. In fact, due to fast fading, slow fading, network congestion and many other factors, your performance may vary only in seconds or millimeters. Therefore, it can be safely assuming that the 4G network is unpredictable.
The operators you are using are different. It is strange that there is no obvious winner among operators, since they usually perform well in different aspects. Some operators have the largest coverage, some have the best urban performance and some are better in rural areas. Therefore, you shall usually expect the performance changes based on operators. It is not common to see an operator outperform another operator in one place at one time, and the next day the role may reverse.
What are the main functions of a civilian router
This is probably the most important factor in determining the look-up functionality in a industrial 4g router: How to use the 4G router? Is this a backup of the current main wired connection that the retail store takes (think backup Internet of POS backup)? Will 4G routers be used in special vehicles (imagine a police car with a surveillance camera)? Or will you use a 4G router as an alternative of residential Internet access?
If you consider using a 4G router as your primary Internet connection every day in your residential environment, then you may need one or two years in advance, because the data cost has not yet reached the level that you can replace the wired Internet line with 4G router. Only when you have no other wired Internet option in your home, the 4G router shall be considered. That being said, , 4G as a failover over your wired Internet in your home is a very smart move. For this simple setting, a 4G router with a single wired WAN and a single 4G connection would be a good choice. We suggest you use the 4G router with internal modem so that you use the external antenna to obtain the optimal coverage scope.
Usage of 4G industrial routers
If your goal is to use the 4G router in industrial applications, such as branch backup connections, or as the primary connection for unmanned computer room monitoring, then your 4G router needs to support some advanced functions, including firewalls, broadband binding, and application-centric optimization. Ideally, you can use 4G industrial router functions in the main router, such as SD-WAN router capabilities with broadband binding. In this setting, your wire can fail over to a set of bound 4G connections. Binding two or more 4G wireless connections provides not only wider bandwidth and higher throughput, but also self-healing functions for traffic over the 4G network. Imagine that you add another lane to your freeway. Compared with a single-lane highway, two-lane freeway can always win. Broadband binding function will make your car drive on this freeway to dynamically switch the lane to shield network problems, fluctuations, and outages in your application.
