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Last month, Netgear announced the £1500 quad-band RBKE960 Orbi Mesh WiFi 6E System. Yesterday they continued their roll of premium-priced networking gear with the announcement of Netgear Orbi NBK752, which is a tri-band mesh WiFi 6 system with a 5G modem built-in, for the bargain price of £1099.99.

Spending a grand on a mesh system may seem ridiculous, but it is not that bad when you look at the price of 5G modem/routers.

Currently, the Huawei 5G CPE Pro 2 is the most popular 5G router, which is used by multiple mobile operators for their 5G contracts. This will set you back £500 If you buy it from Amazon. It does have WiFi 6 itself, but not mesh. You could save a few quid and get the TCL LinkHub HH500E 5G CPE for £400, but Amazon reviews are poor, though this seems to be a WiFi issue, not 5G performance.

The Netgear Orbi NBK752 is then a triband WiFi 6 mesh system having the same specification of the standard RBK752, which has an RRP of £449.99.

Buying the parts separately would be cheaper, but I think most people that are looking for a solution this advanced would also be happy to pay the £150 price difference for an all-in-one system.

Price / Availability / Compatiability

Pricing is:

  • GBP £1099.99
  • EUR €1199.99 
  • USD $1,099.99 

The press release doesn’t state exactly when it will be available.

For US buyers:

The NBK752 is certified for AT&T and T-Mobile. Currently not compatible with Verizon (coming soon), and not compatible with Sprint legacy network. Requires 5G compatible SIM cards for the 5G networks.

Full Press Release

Netgear has introduced the first 5G Tri-band WiFi 6 Mesh System for use in homes and businesses. The latest addition to the brand’s high-performance Orbi product line, the NETGEAR Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh System (NBK752), provides high-speed 5G Internet, especially to those with limited or unreliable access to wired broadband services. 

Today about 42 million Americans have no access to high speed wired Internet service. Many homes and home-based businesses in areas with limited or unreliable (DSL, satellite) access to Internet services may be using cell phone hotspots as the only way to connect to the Internet and share mobile broadband to all their devices. Modern households with dozens of smart devices need a more robust network than a hotspot can provide. Average LTE Internet speeds can be slow, especially during peak hours. For home-based businesses that depend on reliable Internet connectivity, limited broadband options can stifle productivity. 

With 5G coverage now more widely available from mobile carriers, ultra-high-speed Internet is becoming more accessible every day. NETGEAR’s industry-first 5G tri-band system provides an excellent solution that combines widely available superfast 5G mobile connectivity with NETGEAR’s award-winning Orbi WiFi 6 mesh system to help families enjoy blazing-fast speeds and unsurpassed performance with ultra-low latency and no downtime. The new Orbi NBK752 mesh system can be used for always-on broadband, whether as a primary Internet connection or as “failover” backup when wired Internet services fail. Its flexibility is ideal for second or vacation homes, temporary worksites or anywhere wired Internet service is not required year-round.

The Orbi NBK752 mesh system blankets an entire home (up to 4,000 sq. ft.) in WiFi—regardless of the structure, whether a brick townhouse in the city or a sprawling house in a rural area—while tri-band WiFi ensures a dedicated WiFi connection between the router and satellites to deliver unrelenting speeds, no matter how many devices are connected at the same time. And getting access to a 5G network is easy as it works with most major mobile service providers. 

“As the leader in the networking space, we continue to bring exciting new solutions to market that leverage state-of-the-art technology to meet the changing needs of our customers. And the Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh System is no exception,” said David Henry, President & GM of Connected Home Products and Services at NETGEAR. “In a time when having reliable home WiFi is critical to not only work and learning, but to just about everything else we do, consumers can access the best Internet connection with this latest addition to our Orbi portfolio.”

Key features of the NETGEAR Orbi 5G WiFi 6 Mesh System (NBK752) include: 

  • 5G speeds in your home: 5G offers up to 10x the speed and capacity of 4G, so it’s faster, even in densely populated areas with more devices competing for connections. And with latency rates as low as 1ms, 5G is extremely responsive, making even activities such as VR gaming possible.
  • Next-generation WiFi: WiFi 6 allows multiple devices to connect simultaneously without impacting speed or reliability, so the whole family can browse, stream, and download at once.
  • Tri-band technology: Tri-band WiFi with a dedicated WiFi connection between the router and satellite delivers maximum speed and performance to devices throughout your home.
  • Wireless network coverage: 5G is completely wireless, making it the perfect high-speed solution in areas that have access to strong mobile network coverage but lack reliable cable or DSL. 
  • Cellular network flexibility: The router accesses the LTE network in areas without 5G, so you can use it as a backup if your service fails. And when 5G does expand to your area, you’ll be primed and ready to take advantage of it.
  • Whole-home coverage: This mesh system includes a router plus a satellite unit, ensuring your home (up to 5,000 sq. ft) gets reliable WiFi coverage throughout. Additional satellites are available to expand coverage for larger homes. 
  • Easy setup and management: The Orbi App makes it easy to set up the router, manage your network remotely, pause the Internet on any device, track your Internet data usage, and more.

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2 Comments

  1. When a 5G mobile phone can be bought for under £200 there is absolutely no excuse for 5G routers to be this expensive. They have far fewer parts (no battery, no speakers, no screen, no cameras) and much more room as they’re not portable meaning cheaper fabrication.

    1. This is an understandable argument about pricing. I don’t know the answer for sure, but I assume pricing is due to economies of scale/supply and demand.

      The cheapest 5G hotspot on the market is the ZTE MU5001, priced at £280, and Zyxel has the NR5101 indoor router for £350.

      The Netgear Orbi RBK752 (without a 5G modem) is about £450 and is a similar price to other tri-band mesh systems.

      Netgear has added a premium price to this product. You could ham fist your own solution with the ZTE MU5001 and a tri-band mesh system for a couple of hundred less. If you wanted WAN with 5G fallback, then you’d also need to add in a dual-wan router, at which point the Netgear starts to become affordable.
      Essentially, if you want this specific set of features, Netgear is your only choice, and they can charge what they want for it.

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