AT&T Launches First C-Band Mobile Hotspot

pcmag.com:

AT&T launched two new Netgear hotspots today, and the higher-end one—the Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro—is the company's first hotspot to support all of its current and upcoming flavors of 5G. Most notably, that includes both chunks of AT&T's C-band, which the company will use to seriously boost 5G speeds later this year and into 2023.

The $459.99 M6 Pro has everything we've been missing from a hotspot for the past year. Not only does it have all flavors of 5G, it has Wi-Fi 6E to be able to then transmit that 5G as Wi-Fi to up to 32 devices quickly; USB-C and Ethernet ports; and what looks like external antenna jacks. In terms of mobile internet access devices, this thing is the absolute premier.

The $309.99 Nighthawk M6 is more for people who don't think fast 5G coverage is coming their way soon. AT&T says it has "5G," but it's only low-band 5G, which has performed the same as 4G in our tests. On the other hand, it has all of AT&T's 4G technologies and will undoubtably work well in 4G areas. The M6 also lacks Wi-Fi 6E, but with regular Wi-Fi 6 it should be fine distributing 4G.

I'm really glad to see AT&T carrying some state-of-the-art hotspots. Verizon doesn't currently have any C-band hotspots. T-Mobile has one nice one in the Mi-Fi M2000.

AT&T says the best plan for these hotspots right now is a $50/month, 25GB plan; the carrier also has a $75/month, 40GB plan. Those plans aren't enough for most people to use as their primary home internet access, which seems to be an AT&T strategy for now. Unlike with Verizon and T-Mobile, AT&T has said at recent events that it's focused on providing home internet access primarily by expanding its fiber land lines.

The Nighthawk M6 is also known as the MR6110, while the Nighthawk M6 Pro