T-Mobile Personal Cellspot TM-AC1900 (ASUS Router)

Fusion Voice service, features and help.
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by guest » Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:06 pm
Long shot but maybe someone here knows the answer:
I just found a T-Mobile Personal Cellspot TM-AC1900 (ASUS Router) at Goodwill for $4.20. Had to buy it!

Reading online I see this is an ASUS AC1900 router with an additional feature, one of the Guest Access logins has been replaced by a specific guest network that is modified to link through the ISP and cloud to T-Mobile's phone network so long as you make the call using a phone that is known to T-Mobile's network.. Almost as if the router were a cell tower, except the phone is routing through wifi and not cell broadcast. Most phones can route through wifi but this is claimed to have additional magic.

My question: an early review in a respected magazine said you can carry this router overseas and so long as you use your T-Mobile phone, a call will still go through via whatever ISP is there and connect your phone to stateside T-Mobile as if you were still stateside. And - what we actually have is MetroPCS service that runs via T-Mobile's towers. Clearly our phones are allowed to call through those towers but does this modified router allow this connection if overseas?

I have a kid now living in South America, who has her MetroPCS phone with her there, so it would be nice to send her this router to keep in touch with her.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on what I have here.
by guest » Wed Dec 19, 2018 11:04 am
OP here. In case this information is useful to someone who may find this thread when they have the same questions:

Update, after reading everything I could find online.

1) Daughter says she inserts a chip in her phone for T-Mobile when she comes to US, and the chip for a local provider when she is overseas. So the ability of this device to become a window into the US T-Mobile network from anywhere in the world, isn't useful to her.

2) This is a customized version of a $180 ASUS premium router and the ASUS capability is intact. However - reading recent posts I learned when this router goes online it will auto-update its firmware to the final version that was provided by T-Mobile, overwriting any custom flashing the user has installed. So the earlier ability to flash it to pure ASUS firmware or Tomato etc has been made impossible by the automatic update that ASUS now pushes when it appears online. And there's some discussion of how the T-Mobile firmware is outdated in security aspects. Since the device is no longer offered by T-Mobile there likely will never be more recent firmware for it.

Conclusion: An interesting toy. I'm going to use this as an Access Point at the far end of a EOP line, mostly to improve cell phone signal outside the house.
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