Tata Docomo 3G Wi-Fi Hub

Full Review

Serving as an access point to the Internet for up to five people, the Tata Docomo 3G Wi-Fi Hub is a tiny Wireless Router. Think of the tiny Asus WL-330N3G router being fused with a 3G data-access USB stick like the MTS MBlaze and you get an idea of what this device can do.

It is a fairly standard model, if that increases your confidence in it - a ZTE AC30 device branded and customized by Tata.

WiFi signals were usable even 16m away from the device itself.

Device Setup
Upon receiving it, all you need to do is to assemble it in phone-style - insert a Tata Indicom or Tata Docomo SIM card, place the battery and fit the rear panel tight. There is a micro-USB port that you can use with a cable to connect the Hub to your PC or to use with a 2-pin electrical plug over mains without needing a PC.


Switching it on happens via the power button (shown at top-left in above photo), after which the indicators start to light up to indicate device status. The good thing here is that if the battery is fully charged, you can pull out the cable, let the Hub sit entirely isolated and still eke at least two hours of Internet access out of it.


Specifications
The Tata Docomo 3G Wi-Fi Hub supports 802.11b/g standards, there's no Wireless-N functionality here. Seeing as it is meant to share an internet connection, that won't be a problem since this router's theoretical wireless speed of 54Mb/s far outstrips the supported 3G speed of 7.2Mb/s.



According to Tata Docomo, the 3G Hub will still try to fall back to Photon Plus speeds (3.1 Mb/s) instead of much lower 2G speeds, in areas where 3G signal is not available.

Web Interface
Being a wireless router, all the standard options were available except for the limitation of only five users being allowed to connect simultaneously. Besides the 3G/WiFi Status screen, it was good to see configuration options for Channel selection, Port filtering/forwarding, always-on/manual setup, and more. You can even view text messages that have been sent to your phone number.



While it is admittedly nice to allow easy setup without having to know all the above, it led to a surprise on the Wireless Security front. The WiFi access password of "12345" and the web-configurator at http://192.168.0.1 with a password of "admin" are simple default settings, with no prompt to change these. This means passers-by who recognise your WiFi SSID (network name) and try to connect don't have to even attempt to hack, a red carpet welcoming them is rolled out. If you purchase it, I suggest changing the WiFi security type to WPA2 and changing the password right away.



Performance
The Wi-Fi functionality of this tiny wireless router was as good as a normal Wireless-G router. File transfer speeds between multiple PC/laptop/tablet/phones connected to it measured about 3Mbytes/sec in the best case scenario. It was also nice to see how the WiFi signals were still usable in the 27-30% range even 16 metres away from the device itself.



Now for its primary purpose - providing internet access. The first thing I noticed was that the device started up within ten seconds but connected PCs had no internet access until about two minutes after start-up, probably the time it took to connect to the mobile network. Testing across two localities in Bangalore, I found that three computers connected concurrently and doing medium-intensity browsing worked just fine.

Download and upload speeds were good, but the Hub did not seem to be connected in 3G mode (7.2 Mbps), either because of coverage issues or because of the account-type of the SIM given to us for review. In synthetic tests for consistency across two days at different times of day, the below screenshots represent the average speeds seen.


SpeedTest.net screenshot.


PingTest.net screenshot

In real-world tests, http/ftp downloads worked fine at speeds of around 90 KB/s (KiloBytes). Torrents were not shackled either, working at the same speed with no perceivable slowness in the rate of ramping up speed by connecting to multiple peers.

Special Plans for the 3G Wi-Fi Hub
Tata Docomo offers a number of pre-paid and post-paid 3G plans, but users have the option of choosing one of the special plans Docomo offers for this Hub.

The plan priced at Rs. 750 is clearly described as limited, whereas data usage allowed on the Rs. 1000 plan is less clearly defined. The latter is claimed to offer "unlimited data usage under the throttle option, wherein surfing speeds will be determined by user location, number of people accessing the network and device configuration. "

Bottom Line

This tiny wireless router does a commendable function - that of being a wireless router, a 3G access point, being battery-powered for mobility, and being a tiny device indeed.


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