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The Three 4G Plus Hub is designed to be the best mobile data-powered home broadband router this side of 5G ones. Because yes, it tops out at 4G – but it can go well beyond many 4G home broadband routers.
One such router that it can go beyond is the standard Three 4G Hub, and if you’re reading this review then you might be wondering whether it’s worth upgrading from that to this.
Or maybe you’re looking for your first 4G home broadband router. Either way, the Three 4G Plus Hub is a strong option, but it’s not perfect, as we’ll get to below.
Design
The Three 4G Plus Hub looks unlike either the standard Three 4G Hub or the Three 5G Hub. It’s mostly white like those devices, but while they’re tall, this is more wide. Though it actually rises quite high too, so at 277 x 181 x 70mm it’s bigger than those devices, or than a number of other home broadband routers.
That’s something to bear in mind if you were planning to house the Three 4G Plus Hub in quite a small space, but it shouldn’t be an issue in most homes. And size aside, it’s a reasonably good-looking device, with curvy corners and discreet indicator lights on the front.
Setup
All 4G home broadband devices offer a fairly slick and simple setup process, as unlike fibre broadband you don’t need to call out an engineer, you just plug and play.
Ok, to actually configure the settings there’s a bit more to it than that, but it’s all very straightforward, and the Three 4G Plus Hub is no exception. In fact, the 4G Plus Hub arguably makes setup even easier than most rival devices, as it comes with a companion app.
That app (simply called the Three 4G Plus Hub app) helps you find the best place to house the router with the aid of a real time signal strength indicator, and lets you manage your Wi-Fi settings directly from the app, as well as letting you connect directly to the web portal for managing more advanced features.
There are a few more features too which we’ll get to further down, but the ones mentioned here certainly make setup even simpler than it would otherwise be.
Performance and speeds
The Three 4G Plus Hub is a speedy device, supporting maximum download speeds of 600Mbps. For reference, many fibre broadband packages top out at under 100Mbps – though the very fastest fibre broadband can exceed 1Gbps. So the max speeds here are towards the upper end of the best possible speeds fibre can offer – and those fibre speeds aren’t available everywhere.
Of course, average speeds here will be a lot lower than 600Mbps – they’re more in the region of 50-100Mbps, but that’s still in line with fairly respectable fibre packages, and should be fast enough for most users.
Upload speeds meanwhile top out at 100Mbps, and the Three 4G Plus Hub supports Category 18 LTE, which helps ensure it can make the most of Three’s 4G network.
It also supports dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, and can get up to 64 devices online at once – which is a competitive if fairly standard amount, and should be plenty for most users.
Features and software
One slightly weak aspect of the Three 4G Plus Hub is that it has just two Ethernet ports, so fans of wired connections don’t have much to work with – though of course you can always buy an Ethernet switch to extend that number.
There are also two antenna ports for connecting an external antenna. You may not feel the need to do this, but it can come in handy if your signal is weak.
And then of course there’s the app which we mentioned above. Beyond the features we mentioned in the setup section, this app (which is available for both Android and iOS), lets you view connected devices, quickly and easily get other people and devices connected using a QR code, and enable automatic connections using WPS.
So it’s a fairly full featured app, and feels a lot more modern and slick than having to rely on a web interface for everything.
Alternatives
The closest alternative to the Three 4G Plus Hub is the Three 4G Hub, which is a very similar device and even offers the same maximum download speeds, but in practice the Three 4G Plus Hub should be able to reliably and consistently reach higher speeds.
However, the standard model does have twice as many Ethernet ports, and supports just as many simultaneous connections.
If you’re not set on Three though then you might want to consider the EE 4GEE Home Router 3, which is EE’s comparable device. The network doesn’t say how fast it can get, but says it supports EE’s “fastest 4G speeds”, suggesting it probably sports similarly advanced tech. It also has two Ethernet ports and supports 64 simultaneous connections.
There’s also the Vodafone GigaCube 4G, which actually has the Three 4G Plus Hub beat for speeds, topping out at 1.9Gbps – though in reality your speeds will probably be far lower than that. Like the other rivals, it also supports up to 64 simultaneous connections. So there’s not a huge amount to choose between any of them – it will more come down to what network you want to be on (and have the best coverage for) and which plans you find most appealing.
We haven’t mentioned 5G home broadband routers here but if you have a 5G signal at home we’d always recommend one of those over a 4G one, as they’re even faster. For that, consider the Three 5G Hub, the Vodafone GigaCube 5G, or the 5GEE Router 2021.
Plans
At the time of writing the Three 4G Plus Hub is available on just two plans. One is a 24-month plan costing £20 per month (with the first six months reduced to £10). There’s no upfront cost and you get unlimited data.
The other also comes with unlimited data and no upfront cost, but this is a 12-month plan. The shorter duration means you’re paying more per month at £25.
In either case these are very competitive prices – one of the best things about Three’s home broadband routers is that they tend to undercut rivals, and this is no exception.
Conclusion
The Three 4G Plus Hub is an affordably priced and very fast 4G home broadband router, with a handy app to make setup and device management a breeze.
It matches or beats most rival devices for specs and simultaneous connections, though being limited to two Ethernet ports is a slight disappointment, and Vodafone’s 4G router is theoretically even faster.
Still, this won’t disappoint, and it’s tremendously good value. The bigger issue is simply that it’s a 4G device at all in an increasingly 5G world, but if your home doesn’t currently have 5G then it’s a top choice.
