ZTE MF61 4G Mobile Hotspot by T-Mobile Reviewed
An In-Depth Review of the ZTE MF61 4G Mobile Hotspot from T-Mobile.
WiFi Speed & Radius: 
4G Speed: 
Data Plan - Cost & Terms: Features: Design & Engineering: Battery Life: Overall Rating:
In case you haven't been paying attention T-Mobile is in the midst of rebranding itself as a top-tier nationwide 4G provider, with emphasis on “unlimited” plans at prices that undercut its competitors.
With its large wireless 4G footprint, highly rated signal quality and exceptional customer satisfaction awards, T-Mobile has reaffirmed its membership in the “Big 4” wireless providers that offer nationwide 4G in North America (Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint being the others).
Up until this 2011, T-Mobile has not been a player in offering consumer mobile hotspots. T-Mobile did not even offer a mobile hotspot during the “mobile hotspot boom” about three years ago - when the 3G MiFi 2200 came out and quickly redefined what a mobile hotspot was. That has all changed now that T-Mobile has gone full force into the market with a very appealing offering, the MF61 4G Mobile Hotspot, manufactured by ZTE which operates on T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ nationwide network.
One of T-Mobile's big advantages over the past couple of years has been its “niche” offerings for popular smart phones on its high-speed networks, usually at attractive prices – coupled with lots of choices for service plans to meet all types of budgets and requirements.
T-Mobile has thought to have been able to adequately manage the bandwidth and signal quality on its wireless 3G and 4G networks, in large part, since it didn't have to deal with crazy amounts of users bombarding its networks as did AT&T and Verizon with their iPhone consumers. Studies have shown that iPhone users consume as much as 400% more bandwidth than other smartphone users – in other words 20% of their (iPhone) subscribers account for 80% of the bandwidth – “fortunately” (perhaps that’s not the right word?) T-Mobile does not have to contend with the huge network and data saturation demands of iPhone users.
In other words T-Mobile's digital mobile broadband networks have generally not been oversaturated, which would usually translate to a pleasurable experience for T-Mobile device users. Does this scenario still hold true and how does T-Mobile’s ZTE MF61 mobile hotspot hold up in the real world when compared against its competitor’s class leading offerings? Can T-Mobile's HPSA+ 4G network hold its own against Sprint’s WiMAX and Verizon's LTE 4G? Read the MobileHotspot.com review of the T-Mobile ZTE MF61 4G mobile hotspot to find out.
Before we get into the specifics of the T-Mobile hotspot, it would be helpful to explain a bit about the technology used by T-Mobile.
T-Mobile uses the HSPA+ wireless protocol (high-speed packet access, with enhanced back-haul) in its devices it labels as "4G". As of early 2011, both T-Mobile and AT&T use HSPA+ as there present 4G solution.
HSPA+ has often been the subject of arguments and contention, with “experts” sometimes calling it “3.5G”. In textbook definition terms, HSPA+ may not really be a “true” 4G protocol. Compared to protocols like LTE 4G, HSPA+ is indeed not on the same level when compared to maximum theoretical speeds and network performance. But in the real world, HSPA+ has performed well beyond expectations of many of its critics, evidenced by the billions of dollars invested in the technology by T-Mobile and AT&T.
Compared to AT&T, T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G seems to have consistently better overall performance, which may be due to lighter customer traffic and less frequent conditions where the cell towers are “maxed out” or over saturated.
When investing in a mobile hotspot, you want to make sure the technology will be viable for the next two years. In the case of HSPA+, we would guess the answer is YES for a large number of users. But there are factors to consider – of which we’ll delve into shortly.
A closer look at the MiFi’s 5GB monthly data cap
The recent rise in popularity of MiFi and Mobile Hotspot technology has people interested in getting their own subscriptions for wireless broadband internet. The new generation of tiny pocket sized mobile hotspots has made it possible for everyone from casual to hardcore internet users to connect to the internet from anywhere and at anytime, practically wherever a cellular signal is available.
Along with this instant popularity come a few questions. Are the new generation MiFi mobile hotspots really that fast? Could these tiny, self-contained device really connect five devices to it all at once - yet deliver meaningfully high amounts of bandwidth, such as Streaming HiDef Video? And one of the most asked questions regarding this – just what exactly do these "data caps" of 5 to 10 GB mean?
For starters, the typical five gigabyte (ranging from 300MB to 10 GB) cap is imposed by all cellular networks to keep the load within their networks manageable, and allow equity for all it's users. It's easy to say "why don't they just let people download as much as they need?". The problem with this issue is that mobile broadband would loose it "congestion point" status.
Think of it this way: If the water utility gave "unlimited water" for the same price to everyone, for the first week or two everyone would think it's a bargain of a lifetime. But when everyone's water pressure drops from 50 PSI to 10 PSI, and it takes five times longer for a shower, they start to realize that maybe the"unlimited" part for everyone isn't such a great idea, especially when only 10% of the homeowners are accounting for 90% of the water use - simply because they leave every single faucet in their house running 24 hours a day. While this may be a grossly exaggerated example, we think you might get an idea of why it's important to keep the commodity-based aspect of mobile broadband intact for the greater good of all of its users.
As for 5GB, that may not sound like much but take these examples into consideration – to reach 5GB, you’d need any one of the following to eat up 5 gigs of data.
33,333 webpage visits (150KB each)
1,250 downloaded songs from iTunes (4MB each)
1,000 3-minute YouTube videos (5MB each)
200 hours of 56K audio stream (25MB per hour)
167 5-minute iTunes videos (30MB each)
25 45-minute TV show episodes from iTunes (200MB each),
97 hours of video video chat (52MB per hour bitrate),
260 hours of World of Warcraft online gaming (16MB per hour rate),
By way of comparison, 5GB is a represents a fairly overwhelming amount of digital content or duration of online experience, quite possibly more than an average internet user would consume, over even two months.
When you divide the 5GB capacity into 30 days, that’s roughly 167MB per day, and that's assuming you use the device EVERY day. For average users who frequently check their e-mail, surfs the web for a couple of hours, and watches online videos whenever something viral comes up, that’s a lot of bandwidth to spend. Even more "heavy duty" web users would need to make an effort to fill that 5GB monthly cap. Every mobile provider allows their users to check the exact usage for the month with a simple click, so actual usage can monitored real-time. The reported number is how much you’ve spent month-to-date and how much you’re under the 5GB cap for the remainder of the month.
What people are fussing about over the 5GB cap is the mere presence of it. Why is there a cap? A lot of people think that the cap is very limiting, that it doesn’t really give room for the user to do much with the internet. As discussed, 5GB is already a lot of content, and considering that wireless broadband connections are usually the secondary method of connection for most the 5GB cap is very much adequate for what the laptop or portable device is assigned to do.
Granted, 5 Gigs will not go very far when it comes to large volume downloads such as you would encounter with activities like peer-to-peer file sharing, USENET binary groups, and Bittorrent. These type of services could eat up 5 GB often within an hour, so obviously we really can't compare apples to apples with the type of activity that users would expect to do with these services.
But again, for most "typical Internet users", the amount of bandwidth that is required on the client side is actually decreasing. More often, companies are designing the web experience from the mobile perspective. What this means is that the least common denominator becomes the handheld mobile device. Unlike five years ago when the desktop PC was the dominant denominator, developers and architects of the new generation of the web take into account that mobile users will probably be the majority soon enough. By its nature, mobile users are constrained in their bandwidth availability, thus as time goes on less and less footprint is placed on the client side, but yet still achieve the same end result.
So when you hear the 5GB data cap, don’t be alarmed. It’s not something which limits your internet experience for all practical purposes.. It actually enhances it, ensuring the providers 3G and 4G back-bone can handle the load of all the connections. The 5GB cap isn’t a hindrance, but a necessity for good service to all mobile broadband and mobile hotspot users.
