Huawei E5186 VS Huawei B715 LTE-A Router

With the development of LTE networks, LTE Advanced is now becoming the mainstream. So the LTE-A WiFi Routers are more and more popular, which would provide faster speed than that on LTE category 3 or LTE category 4. Huawei E5186 is the world’s first LTE-A router and was very popular in 2016 and 2017. Now the new upgraded Huawei B715 router is available. In this article, we will compare Huawei E5186 and B715 router to see what the difference between the two routers is and which one is better.

Huawei B715 VS E5186 Appearance and Interfaces

Since Huawei LTE CPE E5186 was popular in Europe and Australia in past two years, many people may know it well. Like many other Huawei stationary routers, there are few indicators on the front, such as Power, Mode, WiFi, Voice, Signal. And Huawei logo is in the middle front face. On the back, there are 4 LAN ports (one for LAN/WAN), two RJ11 Telephone port, and USB 2.0 port available. The power switch on/off button is also lined with the interfaces. Huawei Router B715 also has 4 LAN ports (One for LAN/WAN), but it has only one telephone port with the USB 2.0 port. They both use Micro SIM card size. The difference is that the SIM card of Huawei E5186 is located on the edge side while Huawei B715 router has the SIM card slot at the bottom. And they both have two SMA connectors for an external antenna. If you would buy 4G LTE Antenna with two SMA connectors, you can switch the internal antenna to external antenna in the web interface.

Huawei E5186 VS B715 Specs and variant models

The predecessor Huawei B593 LTE router has more than 10 variant models. Unlike Huawei 4G CPE B593, Huawei E5186 has two variant models: Huawei E5186s-61a and E5186s-22a, even though it’s available for two years. The Huawei B715 was presented to market since the end of 2017, so it has only one sub-model Huawei B715s-23c. In the table below, you will see the details specs and features of Huawei B715 and E5186:

 

Model Huawei B715s-23c Huawei E5186s-22a/E5186s-61a
Product type LTE WiFi Router LTE WiFi Router
Category LTE Cat.9 LTE Cat.6
Chipset ? HiSilicon LTE Cat6 Chipset
Data rates DL 450Mbps/UL 50Mbps DL 300Mbps/UL 50Mbps
Supported 4G LTE frequency bands LTE B1, B3, B7, B8, B20, B28, B32, B38 E5186s-22a: Band 1/3/7/8/20/38
E5186s-61a: Band 3/7/28/40
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz
Max support users 64 users 64 users
MIMO 4 X 4 MIMO 2 x 2 MIMO
Connector for external antenna Two, SMA-female jacks Two, SMA-female jacks
App management Huawei Hilink APP Huawei Hilink APP
SIM type Micro SIM Micro SIM
Battery NO NO
Dimensions 240mm × 448mm × 47mm 190 mm × 200 mm × 32 mm
Interfaces * 1 x power adapter port
* 3 x LAN port(45)
* 1 x LAN/WAN port (45)
* 1 x telephone port(RJ11)
* Two external LTE antenna ports (SMA-J1.5)
* One micro-SIM card slot
* 1 x USB 2.0 port
* 3 x LAN port(45)
* 1 x LAN/WAN port (45)
* 2 x telephone port(RJ11)
* Two external LTE antenna ports (SMA-J1.5)
* One micro-SIM card slot
* 1 x USB 2.0 port
Datasheet Huawei B715 Datasheet(PDF) Huawei E5186 Datasheet(PDF)
User Manual Huawei B715 User Manual(PDF) Huawei E5186 User Manual(PDF)
Other features  VPN, VoLTE, IPv4 /IPv6 dual stack, DMZ, Port forwarding  Firewall, CS Voice, VoIP, TR069 Remote Management, HTTP Online Upgrade, QoS, USB Share, UPnP, IPV6, DLNA, Fax, Print, VPN
Price 399.00USD 259.00USD

Conclusion

It’s obvious to see that the Huawei B715s-23c router is more advanced than Huawei E5186. The Huawei E5186 supports LTE category 6 technology which could achieve download speed up to 300Mbps, which is good for most people in daily life. However, the more advanced Huawei B715 would support peak download speed up to 450Mbps, which is 1.5 times faster than that of E5186. Although we didn’t know the chipset model of Huawei B715, the Huawei B715 seems powerful on the LTE technology, including carrier aggregation, 4 x 4 MIMO, TDD&FDD networks support. So you want to buy a better Huawei LTE-A router, it’s no doubt that Huawei B715 is the right model. However, as we said, the Huawei E5186 is enough for most cases in daily life or small office. With budget price, if you want to get a decent router without a high price, Huawei E5186 is highly recommended. It’s popular in the past two years and gains high praise from thousands of users worldwide.

 

Huawei B715 VS Huawei B525 LTE Router

In past few years, Huawei has presented many LTE WiFi routers to the market. Some are especially for the network provider in specific areas or countries; some are open for all the market (SIM-free for global travel). However, Huawei didn’t provide a full list of its 4G LTE Routers. Some models can’t be found on its official site, so as the specs of the Huawei LTE routers. Huawei B715 LTE router and Huawei B525 are the two models which cannot be found on Huawei official site, but they are definitely Huawei products for LTE-A networks. Some customers may have trouble to buy the unlocked version of the two routers for their applications at home or office etc…Today, we will have a general review of the difference between Huawei B715 and B525 router. You may get the reference if you want to buy one of them.

Appearance

Unlike the latest Huawei B618 LTE Cube, both the Huawei B715 and B525 are in the shape of a traditional wireless router. On the front, the Huawei logo and few LED indicators for power, WiFi, internet connection status and signal strength. On the back, 3 LAN ports and one LAN/WAN port with telephone port are listed at the below side. On the top side, two SMA connectors for external antennas are covered by a cap. Huawei B525 router had the label at the bottom, and we can see the crescentic shape from the bottom side. The label of Huawei B715 is just at the side of the external antenna connectors. The label and connectors are covered by a whole cap. However, like the Huawei B525 router, the SIM card slot of Huawei B715 is also located on the bottom side. Like other Huawei 4G wireless router, some important information would be printed on the label, such as the model number, IMEI number, S/N number, SSID, WiFi Key, web log in IP address, WPS pin, FCC ID, power plug voltage, WiFi certified, RoHS logo, Made in China and some model may have the supported LTE frequency bands if there is. Here now, the Huawei B715 has only white color available, but Huawei B525s-23a has black and white color available.

Variant models

Here now, the Huawei B715 has only one variant model Huawei B715s-23c with the support of 4G LTE Band 1/3/7/8/20/28/32/38 and 3G &2G network backward compatible. We are not sure whether Huawei will release more variant models to support different LTE frequency bands combination for other network providers. But as you can see, Huawei B525 has three variant models: B525s-23A, B525s-65a, B525s-95a. They support the frequency bands as below:

 

Huawei B525s-23a:

– Support 4G LTE Band 1/3/7/8/20/32/38 (FDD 800/900/1500/1800/2100/2600MHz, TDD 2600MHz)

– Support 3G DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/UMTS Band 900/2100MHz

– Support 2G GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz

 

Huawei B525s-65a:

– Support 4G LTE Band 1/3/4/5/7/8/20/19/26/28/32/38/40/41 (FDD 2600/2100/1900/1800/1700/1400/900/850/800/700MHz, TDD 2300/2500/2600MHz)

– Support 3G DC-HSPA+/HSPA+/UMTS Band 1/2/5/6/8/19

– Support 2G GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz

Huawei B525s-95a: Unknown yet!

Specifications

You may be attracted by the appearance of the two routers, but when if you want the router to work well at your location, you must see the specifications of the two router. Below is the list comparison of the Huawei B715s-23c and Huawei B525 WiFi router specs for your reference:

Model Huawei B715s-23c Huawei B525
Product type LTE WiFi Router LTE WiFi Router
Category LTE Cat.9 LTE Cat.6
Chipset ? HiSilicon LTE Cat6 Chipset
Data rates DL 450Mbps/UL 50Mbps DL 300Mbps/UL 50Mbps
Supported 4G LTE frequency bands LTE B1, B3, B7, B8, B20, B28, B32, B38 B525s-23a: Band  1/3/7/8/20/32/38
B525s-65a: Band  1/3/4/5/7/8/20/19/26/28/32/38/40/41
WLAN 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band 2.4GHz & 5GHz
Max supported users 64 users 64 users
MIMO 4 X 4 MIMO 2 x 2 MIMO
Connector for external antenna Two, SMA-female jacks Two, SMA-female jacks
Buy Antenna Huawei B715 External Antenna Huawei B525 external antenna
App management Huawei Hilink APP Huawei Hilink APP
SIM Size Micro SIM Micro SIM
Battery NO NO
Dimensions 240mm × 448mm × 47mm 163 x 52 x 226 mm
Interfaces * 1 x power adapter port
* 3 x LAN port(45)
* 1 x LAN/WAN port (45)
* 1 x telephone port(RJ11)
* Two external LTE antenna ports (SMA-J1.5)
* One micro-SIM card slot
* 1 x USB 2.0 port
* 3 x LAN port(45)
* 1 x LAN/WAN port (45)
* 2 x telephone port(RJ11)
* Two external LTE antenna ports (SMA-J1.5)
* One micro-SIM card slot
* 1 x USB 2.0 port
Datasheet Huawei B715 Datasheet(PDF) Huawei B525 Datasheet(PDF)
User Manual Huawei B715 User Manual(PDF) Huawei B525 User Manual(PDF)
Other features  VPN, VoLTE, IPv4 /IPv6 dual stack, DMZ, Port forwarding  Firewall, CS Voice, VoIP, TR069 Remote Management, HTTP Online Upgrade, QoS, USB Share, UPnP, IPV6, DLNA, Fax, Print, VPN
Reviews Huawei B715s-23c Review Huawei B525 Review
Price/USD 399.00USD 259.00USD

 

 

Huawei B715 VS B525 Speed Test

If you want to know the real speed performance, check the Huawei B715 VS Huawei B525 Speed Test in the video:

 

 

Conclusion

From the specs table, we can see Huawei B715s-23c is more advanced supporting higher LTE level networks with faster downlink. Huawei B525 provides more variant models for different LTE frequency band combination and more colors to select. Usually, the more advanced of the router, the price higher. So we can see the Huawei B715 is more expensive than Huawei B525 router. If you don’t care about the price, then Huawei B715 is the right one for you. Huawei B525 may not the most advanced, but for most customers, the downlink speed is enough for most applications cases. Almost same interfaces would not make you in trouble when you connect few devices simultaneously. The important is if you want to fulfill extra functions such as VPN, VoLTE, VoIP or DHCP, you may check the datasheet carefully to confirm.

However, if you don’t know how to select from the variant models, you may refer to this blog: Five Tips to Buy a Huawei 4G Router.