Building an LTE Access Point with OpenWRT Rooter | Hacker News Reader

Building an LTE Access Point with OpenWRT Rooter

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126 pointskingsomething25 comments

Currently, my ideal setup is GLinet Spitz X750, with the LTE modem swapped out to a MC7455 for maximum compatibility (for mpcie slotted cards) with the world's LTE bands. Then run GoldenOrb's ROOter. The x750 has integrated dual band simu WiFi, and has an integrated slot and pigtails for the modem. Since I travel a lot, I can power this entire thing off of an Anker USB power bank.

Today, you can go the route of: 1) OpenWRT with ModemManager, 2) WiFix's ROOter, or 3) GoldenOrb's ROOter. Personally I like GoldenOrb's ROOter because it has a nicer UI interface that I can access from my phone. You can SSH into it and hack the scripts to get things to work exactly how you want to as well.

Shoutout to the GLinet team, they actually listen to feedback.

Curious how you use this on the road. Is it basically a hotspot?

Quite expensive ($120?). My setup consists of a RPi Zero (20 € new), LTE stick as in this post (29 € used), USB power adapter (5 €), micro USB to USB (2 €), so in total only around 55 €, minus lots of fun setting it up (priceless). Not sure the RPi Zero is the best option here in terms of speed, but it works well for my purposes.

Edit: Looks like the RPi Zero maxes out at around 35 MBit/s.

I been wanting to try the SDR [0] approach, but knowing OpenWRT can do it is thrilling. What LTE release do they support?

Also, I see ROOTer supports Android devices using tether. I am curious if this is better than PdaNet+

[0] https://github.com/srsLTE/srsLTE

If you want none of the fun, a rooted dual SIM smartphone does all that. I've not had trouble finding prepaid SIMs that would not work via Hotspot.

I believe GL iNET already sells something similar too: https://www.gl-inet.com/

I love this, but I found their web pages confusing and with too many products.

I think they need someone to look at how they express themselves. Can't believe I'm saying this, but it's in need of some simpler, clearer marketing.

Jesus, you ain't kidding. A carousel with 8 slides, each a different product. I'm just starting to absorb what the difference is between the product on tab 3 and the products on 1 & 2 and then I'm looking at product #4.

And if you look at their product page they actually have 11 products and a discontinued section with 10 more products in it.

Half the time I think I want to work for a company of nerds, by nerds, and for nerds.

The other half the time I remember what we think 'marketing material' and 'documentation' looks like and get a little scared about my own judgement.

GL iNET routers are great. The forum and the developers are nice. I think all gl-inet devices’ source code available on github. I recommend it to anyone who wants to hack their router.

Are there third party boaster antennas available for their 4G collection? I use these antennas on my WRT3200ACM and they help.

This device is great. I use it for nearly the exact purpose the OP describes. The GL iNET also lets you tether from a mobile device and stream the connection to devices connected to the router.

It acts as a hotspot, not a base station. The title doesn't make that clear.

If you have time to spare this is a nice option to have. However,I didn't so after looking up reviews online I got a TPLink Archer MR200 LTE/4G router that you can simply plug a sim card in and it provides both wired and 2.4/5GHz WiFi. As the thing sits in the attic next to a diy dual biquad lte antenna its Wifi doesn't cover lower floors of the house so I have two of Fritz Wlan Repeater 1750E.

Now the TPLink router is not cheap. The US price is around $300, but in my opinion is well worth it as it gives me the ability to connect my DIY antennas and up to now it has been working almost flawlessly (barring a restart every few months) for 3 years. There are probably other routers that are equally good, but my experience is with this one.

Regarding the WLAN repeater, it is also an expensive one at around $100, but it is the only reliable WLAN repeater I found. I started with a cheap D-Link, returned it to the store after a day, tried another one etc. I went through 5 or 6 repeaters until I found this model that actually works with multiple devices, is fast etc.

Also, on the subject of LTE, I had real trouble finding a directional antenna I could purchase that would have at least 10dB gain at 800MHz (that's the LTE frequency my local tower uses) and wouldn't cost more than the router itself. So I ended up making two of them(as the router supports multi paths). At the end of the day it is only a bit of sheet steel and wire. I don't get why good lte antennas costs as much as they do.

Having played with all of this before I have some opinions on a few of these things.

I have half a dozen of those TP-Link routers in a drawer, they're fun to play with and ok for on the go. For traveling I'd stick with one off those over a Raspberry Pi, or better yet, for a nice little upgrade I'd go with one of the GL.INet routers, I have a few of those too and they all support OpenWRT/LEDE. They come with it out of the box (albeit with their GUI on top).

RPi is sensitive to power fluctuations and note great for travelling because pulling the plug a couple of times will likely destroy your micro SD. If you were to use one for travel I'd suggest mounting your microSD read-only for maximum safety. I've been through a dozen or so cards in a static Pi before I switched to ramdisks and read-only root.

Currently I only use my mobile as a hotspot because it's inconvenient and extra cost to have additional SIM/data when my mobile contract offers plenty.

Another more powerful device is the NanoPI R1 which packs WiFi, BT and two Ethernet ports (one through USB) in a form factor comparable to that small TP-Link router. The second Ethernet and bigger hardware specs could be handy to set up a VPN to a safe network when connecting from untrusted places. https://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&... Currently not listed among Rooter compatible devices, but the Orange PI zero plus is (both use Allwinner CPUs), so porting shouldn't be that hard.

ROOTer is awesome. I used the Golden Orb release a couple of years ago for something similar (hooked up to a phone).

It got us through a couple of months when we couldn't get a wired connection.

The drop in download speed is quite disappointing in my opinion. Possibly this can be solved by using more powerful hardware for the WiFi router, of course, but not being able to handle 70mbps can indicate possible bottlenecks on the future.

I'd be interested in seeing the difference between connecting the 4G stick to a PC instead of to the OpenWRT modem to see if the real bottleneck isn't actually in the receiver.

the dongle should be able to handle 75Mbps (searched for some speed tests), which leads me to believe the problem could be a) position of the 4G antenna - it is internal so not as powerful as their previous router which had external - have they tried placing the dongle on the top floor of his house near a window facing the nearest 4G mast? not a lot is explained about the testing process b) the mini router consumes 0.5W power! could the USB 2.0 port even provide the standard 2.5W, or anywhere near it for that matter? c) a combination of both

150 Mbit/s are also not a problem.

I had a similar setup, also with an E3372 for a few years (before switching to a EM7455 and then a Huawei B618) and never had USB power issues on a TP-Link router.

If one needs something more "pro" for LTE routers there's Peplink (https://www.peplink.com/) and Cradlepoint (https://cradlepoint.com/)

Noob question: why would you ever want to use this instead of Wifi?

This isn’t in lieu of WiFi - it’s just a DIY WiFi hotspot with an LTE modem attached to it. The title could be read to misleadingly make the device sound like an LTE base station.

As a former engineer building LTE base stations - the title is extremely misleading.

Depending on the equipment in use, potentially much longer range, higher throughput at greater distances, and because it’s cool. Just a guess on my part.

I’m pretty sure it’s more of a DIY MiFi device.

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