In case you didn’t know, U Mobile has an “unlimited” 5G wireless broadband offering called U Home 5G that’s competitively priced at RM68/month. However, it is a SIM-only plan and consumers would have to buy their own 5G home router which can be a substantial cost upfront. To ease the barrier to entry, U Mobile will soon offer 5G routers on contract and there will be two options available.
As shared to the media, U Mobile understands the need to offer 5G routers with the plan. When they launched U Home 5G, the 5G routers were quite expensive at the time and they have waited for the right moment where prices have come down to a more palatable level. According to U Mobile, they will be bundling 5G routers from Kaon and ZTE starting next month which will be tied to a contract.
The first option is the Kaon AX1500 5G router which supports WiFi 6 and it is 5G SA ready. This router comes in a tower format and it has two LAN ports at the rear. The power button and SIM slots are located at thebase of the router.
The next option is the ZTE MC888S 5G wireless router which also supports WiFi 6 and 5G SA. Unlike the Kaon router, this ZTE model comes with a flat box design and it has a total of 4 LAN ports at the rear. We are told that the performance of both routers are similar and the orange telco decided to go with two vendors to diversify its router supply. From this, we can assume that the bundle pricing for both routers should be quite similar.
There’s no pricing and bundle details just yet and U Mobile will reveal their U Home 5G router offers in early March 2024. At the moment, U Home 5G SIM-only plan costs RM68/month and it comes with a 1TB Fair Usage Policy (FUP) limit. If you need more data quota, you can add 1TB more for an extra RM30.
The coverage and performance of U Home 5G depends on Digital Nasional Berhad’s (DNB) 5G network which claims to have over 80% 5G population coverage as of the end of 2023. DNB guarantees a minimum speed of 100Mbps and you can potentially get higher speeds depending on your location. With Wireless 5G, this is a very viable and affordable alternative to home fibre broadband. Not only it is priced under RM100, a wireless 5G router is just plug and play, with no complicated installations required.
U Home 5G’s direct competitor is Yes 5G Wireless broadband. Yes 5G offers a SIM-only plan with unlimited 5G quota for RM58/month and you can also get a free 5G wireless router bundle on a RM99/month plan with a 24-month contract.
