Finally managed to get my beloved to help me, now she’s not so busy and is feeling better. Tried hole-poking (for ~20 s after power-on) to get a factory reset and then tried to connect wirelessly to the ZTE’s published SSID using the PSK that is printed on a label on the base. That failed, can see an SSID named Three_xxxx something or other, but failed the password challenge. I could try some other guesses that I see listed at:
https://www.192-168-1-1-ip.co/router/zte/mf286/9288/So next, I once again tried wireful access. Did things in the right order this time round. Disconnected my DHCP server (Firebrick router) from main switch, once again poked holes, then set up suitable IP/netmask/gateway for my iPad and tried
http://192.168.1.1 no joy, can’t even ping it. So never got a chance to try passwords. I should be using the right IPv4 address for it, as there is no DHCP server around.
So absolutely no luck at all, no matter what I try. I wondered about filming the boot-up sequence, focusing in on the LEDs’ states. Would that be of any use? Where’s the best place to upload the video to?