3 4G router. From TPlink Mr600 to Huawei B818. Wow!! But network setup help needed!NAT/PortForward

Associate
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22 Jan 2021
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Hi guys,

I wonder if anyone could help me. For the last 18/24 months we've had full time 4g broadband on three using a TPlink Mr600 router. We have very good signal where we are and luckily enjoyed 30/40MBPS down for a long time. Its also rock steady with (for my uses) low ping (35-55ms).

When the iPhone 12 pro came out, I ordered one and using that on the same network at my house, I noticed a marked improvement in my download speeds on 4g at home. Id easily get 110-120mbps on my iPhone in a crap location within the house, yet the router facing the Mast at the window would struggle to get 20mbps.

This meant I went down a rabbit hole of making sure I was getting carrier aggregation to the router. the TPlink Mr600 would never properly attain 4g+ for some reason and there's lot of discussion online about it. You can upload a beta software version and specify which bands the router connects to but in my location, I never got carrier aggregation. and 4g+.

So I ordered a Huawei B535 which did allow me to get the 4G+ light displayed so that was a good sign, but there was only a nominal increase in speeds of downloads and uploads. I returned this to amazon as it as very marginal.

Since then I got a Huawei B818 and it seems the antennas and more importantly the modem chip seems to be as capable if not better than my iPhone. Im easily seeing a 6X increase in download speeds. This is awesome and exactly what I wanted when I invested again in a router.

So, happy days, Much better speeds! But now ive got to manage with the Huawei interface, which is a bit for me to get used to! I need to set up how the 4g is distributed to my network now.

A bit about my network. We use TpLink Deco M9 Pluses which really do a good job of maintaining as fast a wifi speed as possible, but they are pretty limited in their networking capabilities. Theyre very very consumer centric and not at all a pro product. Their interface is designed to be access via App which really does my head in. SO, with my last router, The MR600, this was used as the DHCP server and all traffic was managed by that. the Decos were set just as access points. I used port forwarding to successfully access my home CCTV and Dynamic DNS all worked great. In 18 months I don't think I ever struggled to access my home CCTV remotely.

Now this leads me to some issues with the Huawei router and setting it up how id like. I tried last night for hours trying to get port forwarding to work for my devices but I really couldn't. Im hoping someone much wiser in this field will be able to spot my mistakes so I can change it and have it functioning like my last set up. Last night I even tried to put the Huawei into bridge mode and swap to using the Deco M9s to DHCP server and manage all traffic and forward ports with the Decos. that worked for a while, then stopped. I was unsure how to set up the Ip addresses for both devices. I put them on a separate subnet but I had lots of problems.

I suppose to get the best advice I need to note a few points about the set up as I understand it.

On three I used the APN "3Internet" this gave me much more stable external IPs with my last set up.
I don't believe 3 use CGNAT.
The ports I need to forward are 80, 8000 and 554. If I set them up as a virtual server and check if the ports are open online, they are but it doesn't work and can't connect to my cctv.

Last night I also tried disabling all traffic management and DHCP from the Huawei and handing it over to the TPlink Decos, but even when port 80 was forwarded to my CCTV, the bloody Huawei router kept pinging up when I used my "external" IP and port 80.

I appreciate this has been a long read and im sorry about that! any help/input from someone with a Huawei router with a 4g connection would be greatly appreciated! :)
 
Man of Honour
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The MR600 and carrier aggregation from what I've seen doesn't work properly at all even under ideal circumstances it won't fully use all bands available - in many cases I got better results from my MR6400 which is only Cat4.

EDIT: I've pretty much stuck with my TP-Link for that reason though it is a breeze to setup and get good results with compared to the likes of the Huawei, etc.
 
Associate
OP
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22 Jan 2021
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The MR600 and carrier aggregation from what I've seen doesn't work properly at all even under ideal circumstances it won't fully use all bands available - in many cases I got better results from my MR6400 which is only Cat4.
yep, which is pretty disappointing as apart from that its been a good router. The speeds on the B818 are 6x better now! :) Just cannot seem to get port forwarding working :(
 
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OP
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22 Jan 2021
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Update:

I seem to be able to make some traction by setting the Huawei to bridge mode, using the deco m9s as Router. I have to use the "dynamic IP" setting in the connection type settings. This then gives me IP addresses as follows.

IP Address:

94.196.122.105

Subnet Mask:

255.0.0.0

Default Gateway:

94.0.0.1

Primary DNS:

8.8.8.8

Secondary DNS:

8.8.4.4



BUT, and I had this last night, if I reset the router cabinet and turn off all devices, when they restart the dynamic addresses from the Huawei router go Pete tong. I get assigned a 192.168.1.X address :(
 
Associate
OP
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22 Jan 2021
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update, got a Unifi USG (my first ubquiti product after wanting to try them for a while), turned the deco to APs, used the USG as a router and all wayyyyy better. everything working perfectly first time!
 
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