Hi,
Just bought MAX BR1 Pro 5G - 5GH-T-PRM.
Vanilla setup just out of the box, no settings have been changed (did hard reset too).
T-Mobile 5G SIM is in (Magenta Max - unlimited), IP Passthrough is on, and I’m standing right by the cell tower (in NJ, US).
Getting flat, almost perfect 0.5Mb download rate on my speed test (speakeasy, hitting a NJ site) on my laptop.
Upload is 80Mb+.
My cellphone clocks 100Mb down/80Mb up give or take.
Quadruple-checked all defaults - all seems sane, tried to disable HTTPS persistence policy - no effect.
Again, vanilla setup, no VPN, SpeedFusion is off, etc.
Firmware is the latest 8.2.1 (build 5018).
Given upload rate in the right range, I can rule out any band issues (checked, it was 5G/n71, LTE/66, LTE2/2).
What is it?
Any weird default download 0.5Mb throttle?
Defective unit?
Any help is much appreciated.
Thx!
Contact T-Mobile and have them check how the SIM is provisioned, especially as it pertains to the BR1. I’ve been through this many times with other carriers and you need to keep trying until you get a rep that knows what they’re doing or ask that it be escalated to tier 2 support because the front-line people likely won’t be able to help you.
Hmm, I took out SIM from my phone (verified working speed-wise) and put into BR1 - got the same (bad) results. How do you explain high upload speeds (expected rate)?
The SIM is not provisioned correctly for the BR1, upload is useless without good download speeds so it’s meaningless. What did you buy the BR1 for?
Bought BR1 as a WAN failover to my FIOS/Unifi setup.
Indeed, near zero download is a show-stopper.
Had new SIM inserted into my laptop - expected download/upload - no issues with SIM.
So, are you saying T-Mobile detects the equipment other than phone/tablet/laptop and heavily throttles download rates? Any way to get around it (call to L2 folks as you’ve mentioned - would they fix it)?
Thx much!
It appears that this plan may be one intended for phones rather than routers/hotspots. Am I correct about that?
Yes, each device has a unique ESN and T-Mobile knows the BR1 isn’t a phone or tablet. The BR1 Pro 5G is so new they may not know what it is just that the SIM doesn’t match the ESN it was provisioned with. You likely need a separate data plan for the BR1 but again, just call T-Mobile. And no, L2 won’t be able to help if that is the case.
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You were right, the default plan (table/laptop) had to changed to a hostspot one, with extra $$$ 
but with a lot of download juice 
Thx much for your help!
So what speeds are you seeing now? There was a time you could just drop in a phone SIM but I think those days are over…
The first test after changing the plan showed ~55Mb download.
As you have said (and the rep confirmed), they do check the device type and know that peplink beast is a hostspot type, so they only offer mobile internet plan for that. Even internet home plan didn’t work as it was locked into their own LTE router.
The whole thing is somewhat silly (pricing wise), but it is what it is.
Now have to find a best reception inside the house to park the beast.
Thx again for the hint!
I don’t know where you’re located, but the speeds you’re seeing are abysmal, not even LTE-A. You might want to explore a data plan from ATT or Verizon to truly let that “Beast” roar if you in fact have 5G or even Cat 20 in your area.
the plan detects data usage as hotspot, and throttles it. normal for most handset plans
but with a lot of download juice 