Pros & Cons
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- Rugged.
- Huge battery.
- Antenna ports.
- Supports all AT&T frequency bands, plus LTE roaming.
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- AT&T service plans are expensive, especially for international use.
AT&T Unite Explore (Netgear AC815S) Specs
| Battery Life | 18 hours, 8 minutes |
| Number of Devices Supported | 15 |
| Service Provider | AT&T |
| Wireless Specification | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac |
The AT&T Unite Explore ($199.99) shows why you need a mobile hotspot. In an era of smartphones with hotspot mode, the Unite Explore—also known as the Netgear AC815S—shows the battery, range, network, and signal advantages that justify getting a separate hotspot when you really need Internet access for a family or group. It's not only the best hotspot for AT&T, but the best hotspot in terms of hardware you can get right now. This earns it our Editors' Choice recommendation.
Design and Features
The Unite Explore is a rugged little brick at 4.5 by 2.8 by 0.8 inches and 6.3 ounces. It's covered in rubber bumpers and is splash resistant, though not dunkable. On the front, there's a bright 2.4-inch, 320-by-240 touch screen that lets you quickly check the network name, password, data used, and devices attached to the hotspot. The charging port, which also lets you connect it as a USB modem, is a USB 3.0 port; you can also use a micro USB cable to charge the hotspot.
One of the Unite Explore's key features lies along the side: a pair of external antenna ports. You can easily find $30 antennas for the Unite Explore, which can boost its signal capture abilities well past those of any smartphone.
The other key feature lies within. A removable 4,340mAh battery that lasted for 18 hours, 8 minutes of continuous streaming in our tests. That's more than three times what most smartphones typically manage in hotspot mode. Even better, you can reverse-charge your phone from the hotspot in emergencies. That's a useful trick we've seen in other favorite hotspots like the Verizon Jetpack AC791L ($49.99 at Verizon Wireless) .
Connectivity and Performance
The Unite Explore is AT&T's only hotspot with the latest Qualcomm X12 modem. It's also AT&T's only hotspot supporting 3x carrier aggregation, which knits together three different bands of radio spectrum into a single wider highway for greater speeds. AT&T has already begun to roll out 3x carrier aggregation, so owners of older hotspots such AT&T's other hotspot offering, the AT&T Velocity ($47.80 at eBay) will be left behind as it spreads.
The hotspot supports LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/12/17/29/30 and HSPA 850/1900/2100. That's the best array of any recent AT&T hotspot; most others lack band 30, which AT&T says it has started using to help capacity in congested areas. This is also the only hotspot sold by a major carrier right now with LTE roaming beyond Canada, Mexico, and a few other countries: Bands 1, 3, and 7 give it the ability to roam on LTE in many foreign countries, including all of Europe and much of Asia.
AT&T's international service plans aren't cheap (for example, a mere 300MB of data costs $60), and the company has a restrictive unlocking policy, but it's great to at least have the technical option to roam.
Unfortunately, in testing the hotspot in five locations over two days in New York City, we couldn't find the differences between any AT&T devices on LTE, because the carrier's network was so congested. Strong signal or weak, in Manhattan or Queens, all of our AT&T devices crawled along largely at sub-10Mbps speeds, erasing any differences that a better modem or better frequency band support can offer. So we couldn't see the advantages of the Unite Explore's superior hardware in real life, but we expect it will shine in better coverage areas. Which network is best where you live?? Read our Fastest Mobile Networks feature to find out.
Wi-Fi options here are superior compared with the AT&T Velocity, which can't handle 2.4GHz and 5GHz simultaneously. The Web-based admin screen is clear and easy to use. You can easily switch the hotspot to 2.4GHz, 5GHz, or both. The device supports OpenDNS for content filtering, segregated guest networks, scheduling, MAC filtering, VPN passthrough, DMZs, and IP passthrough for USB connections. I was able to manage about 70 feet of Wi-Fi range in my tests, and you can connect up to 15 devices—more than the 10 you get with most of the competition.
Plans
The Unite Explore should be able to serve as a primary Internet router for a cabin or vacation home, but you should be aware of AT&T's pricey plans. AT&T hotspots do not work with unlimited data plans. You can attach the hotspot to a shared-data account, or pay $25 for 2GB, $50 for 5GB, or $75 for 8GB. When you go higher than the 8GB plan, additional data costs $10 for 2GB. Larger amounts of data are available on shared data plans: $130 for 25GB, for instance, or $245 for 50GB.
There are much less expensive options available on other carriers, but the Unite Explore hotspot is locked to AT&T. T-Mobile offers 10GB for $50 and 22GB for $95. Boost Mobile, on the Sprint network, also offers 10GB for $50.
Conclusions
The Unite Explore offers the best possible hotspot hardware you can get on the AT&T network right now. It replaces our previous favorite AT&T hotspot, the Unite Pro ( at AT&T TV + Internet) . It has a newer modem and much longer battery life, while preserving the Unite Pro's strengths.AT&T currently has two hotspots available: the Unite Explore and the less expensive AT&T Velocity. While the Velocity is perfectly fine, the Unite Explore has more of what we want from a hotspot, especially with its future-proof modem, international roaming, and external antenna options. That makes it our Editors' Choice on AT&T, and one of the best hotspots we've tested.