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Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

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Re: Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

#11

Post by dehrmann »

I did something similar with OpenWRT and a MikroTik box. It works fine. The interesting bits were getting OpenWRT to work on a then-unsupported device (it was very similar to other devices, though), picking a modem with good support for multiple US carriers, depending on the modem, disabling USB3 by taping over those pins, flashing carrier-specific firmware, and getting the modem to connect.

Then I went overboard and set up routing so bulk traffic (OS updates, backups) go over a slower DSL connection, while other traffic goes over LTE. And if LTE goes down, it switches to the DSL connection.

Re: Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

#12

Post by dehrmann »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #8
loose11 wrote: post #4

You should checkout EspressoBin, which should be more suitable for this task. Hardware-Switch, WAN-Port and so on

It has horrible reviews (booting by itself etc.). Any better alternative?

I've had decent luck with this: https://mikrotik.com/product/RBwAPR-2nD

Re: Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

#17

Post by Spivak »

I don't with to diminish the author's work but there's nothing all that special about the LTE portion. From the perspective of the Pi it's just another interface/network.

This is more akin to building a basic consumer all-in-one router -- which I think actually sounds cooler.

So the pieces that this article puts together:

* Bridging the Pi's ethernet and wireless interface and setting up DHCP pointing to a forwarding DNS server on the bridge with dnsmasq.

* Setting up Linux IP forwarding and the iptables rules needed to perform NAT over the WAN.

* Setting up a wireless access point on the Pi with hostapd.

It really is super cool that for $35 and an hour you can have a functioning, albeit not super fast, router that's basically ready to be plugged into a modem and work.

Re: Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

#18

Post by caro_douglos »

Spivak wrote: post #17

I don't with to diminish the author's work but there's nothing all that special about the LTE portion. From the perspective of the Pi it's just another interface/network. This is more akin to building a basic consumer all-in-one router -- which I think actually sounds cooler. So the pieces that this article puts together: * Bridging the Pi's ethernet and wireless interface and setting up DHCP pointing to a forwarding…

A lot of how-tos that involve raspberry pi’s networking are no longer relevant or are just confusing because it contains conflicting information specific to some version of raspian. It’s sort of like trying to give new Lts Ubuntu a static IP only to discover it’s been changed. It’s nice to see it all pieced together.

Re: Building an LTE Access Point with a Raspberry Pi

#20

Post by tjohns »

Not mentioned in the article, but I'd also recommend force-setting DHCP Option 43 to "ANDROID_METERED" to let Android clients know you're on a metered connection (hotspot) instead of a normal landline-based WiFi network. [1] This inhibits some things like automatic updates.

I don't know of an equivalent for other OSes, unfortunately.

[1]: https://www.lorier.net/docs/android-metered.html

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