I now have a 3G USB dongle (Huawei) NIC which speaks PPPoE and plugs into my `Firebrick router for use as a failover backup internet connection.
It doesn’t speak 4G unfortunately. That would require a different model and the ones I’ve read about on Andrews and Arnold’s web page devoted to the topic that do speak 4G seem to use a different type of (logical) interface compared to thus 3G one. That web page is possibly a year or so old and could maybe do with some updating. The 4G ones mentioned seem to be a pain to set up and seem to suffer from a problem where the use of NAT is forced on you, unless you use some kind of tunnel to get round the whole thing with attendant reduced MTU and performance loss too. Since I would be wanting to get my existing IPv4 address block routed straight, through the dongle with no nonsense and nothing getting in the way, then I would have no idea how to go about it and going the tunnelling route is not good.
So 4G dongles seem unattractive currently, unless someone can find a reliable model that does not have an evil NIC software interface associated with it.
I am not that bothered about speed anyway, as it would only be for emergency usage. I have a stand-alone 4G wireless (ie 4G-to-wireless LAN) router as well for emergency purposes, a Solwise unit, which has optional large upgrade antennae too which are to plug into it in the end if some coax. (Unfortunately they’re buried in all the boxes in the office so I need to persuade my beloved to do some digging, lest it turn into the closing scene of a Raiders of the Lost Ark) and that is to travel with us too should the situation ever arise.
I don’t know why, but I only seem to get about 2 Mbps downstream, about the same upstream very roughly, iirc, from the dongle when plugged into the Firebrick in the office. I thought this compared poorly to my iPad’s internal 4G NIC which reports 8Mbps downstream. The iPad says this is 3G, not 4G presumably due to current the bad positioning, with me in bed at the far end if a room with thick stone walls. The windows of the bedroom are east facing and that is towards the basestation directly in line of sight across the valley to the east, but nevertheless the angle from the iPad’s position it the edges if the window is not so good and I think this is why it is usually not reporting 4G mode. In 4G it is supposed to be theoretically csosbkymifmgetting 60Mbps according to AA’s server and I think 3G is 17Mbps max here.
Don’t know why the dongle only gets 2Mbps downstream compared with the iPad in 3G mode and its 8Mbps. The dongle has better positioning anyway, it was fairly high up on the south walk if the office, again with an east facing window and line of sight straight to the basestation. To increase its chances, I even got a long USB extension cable which Janet deployed so that the dingle could be placed slap bang in the middle of the window east-facing. However that produced no improvement. Speeds were measured with the Andrews and Arnold speed tester.
Does anyone else have experience of performance levels of 3G dongles?
Perhaps this dongle just is not that good? Maybe its internal antenna is not that great? I don’t see why that in the iPad should be better, unless it’s to do with the greater amount of physical space available in it.