The widespread 5G roll-out by different service providers has made wireless home broadband a very real possibility. The ability of 5G to support a denser subscriber base compared to 4G means that traditional consumer networking equipment vendors are bringing out a variety of 5G gateways to sell into the service-provider market for CPE (consumer premises equipment).
At CES 2020, D-Link announced that the DWR-2010 5G NR Enhanced Gateway (made public last year) now sports support for 5G in the sub-6 GHz band while delivering AX3000-class Wi-Fi connectivity on the other side. Key specifications include downlink speeds of up to 4 Gbps (5G) / 2 Gbps (4G LTE+), 3x1Gb and 1×2.5Gb LAN ports, a 1Gbps WAN port, 1 USB 3.0 port, a single SIM slot and one RJ-11 port for voice services.
Two additional products were announced – the 5G Gateway (DWR-978) and 5G NR Outdoor Unit (DWP-1020). The former sports bands support similar to the 5G NR Enhanced Gateway, but, the downlink is limited to 1 Gbps with 5G, and the Wi-Fi connectivity is restricted to AC2600. It has 4x 1Gb LAN ports and a 1Gbps WAN port, a single USB 2.0 port and one SIM slot. The 5G NR Outdoor unit also supports mmWave in addition to the sub-6 GHz band. It is also IP45-rated (waterproof), and can tolerate temperatures between -40C and 55C. It can be powered with PoE, comes with a single SIM slot and has a 5 Gbps LAN port.
Overall, D-Link’s 5G offerings provide a variety of choices to service providers, and it bodes well for 5G wireless home broadband. It must be noted that D-Link’s competitors such as Netgear also have a suite of 5G products targeting the same market.