Connect Mobley to a router

[pappy437]

Way above my pay grade but I need to hook the Mobley to my router.Will this work https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNet-GL-MT300N-Pre-installed-Performance-Compatible/dp/B01AL7P1FU/?I have done a lot of reading but if it will work I need a lot of real plain and simple instructions.If you have a better idea please let me have it.Got to be pretty easy or I will be in trouble. Thanks in advance.

[rynosback]

I connect mine to a Ranger Go A/C wirelessly to my Mobley.  And I can connect my iPhone (Verizon) by USB port to the GO and use Verizon.

Are wanting this because you are wanting to connect more then 5 devices to your Mobley or needing to hardwire a devise?

I am sure Doc/Joel should be chiming in.

[pappy437]

I am needing to hardwire a devise.

[Carlos]

I'm a network engineer, but every device has different details.  I can give you some general ideas.  In most cases, if a router says that it works with "tethering," then it will work with most but not all devices that provide a cell connection.  That one is based on the world's most complete open-source software, so it's very likely to work.

Another option is to get a client bridge or use that one in bridge mode.  This is where you plug the wired device(s) into it, then join its wifi to the Mobley's wifi as a client, just like your wireless devices.

Overall, I think that little box is likely to work.  You often need to set the APN and DNS on the connections manually, but not always.

[k4rs]

I have used both the GL-iNet MT300 (v1, the previous version of the one you linked to) and the dual band AR750.  Both were plug and play.

Safe Travels...

[pappy437]

OK thanks for the advice. I will get on ordered and get back when I have news or more questions,stay tuned.

[lockmup68]

I have the mobly tethered to this: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075GYWPCJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has two USB ports (one for power to the mobly and one for the tethering) and software interface to login to and connect to the mobly. You can use this as your hardwire and/or wifi router; or I disable wifi on this unit and just hardwire over to an amplifyHD wireless router (previously an apple airport extreme) as I like the configuration and capabilities of those routers better than the old ASUS. (To simplify, I only use the asus as a tether and power for the mobly; I use the amplifyHD for all wireless and routing (also attached to a couple of GB switches)). 

[chirakawa]

1 hour ago, lockmup68 said:

I have the mobly tethered to this: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075GYWPCJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It has two USB ports (one for power to the mobly and one for the tethering) and software interface to login to and connect to the mobly. You can use this as your hardwire and/or wifi router; or I disable wifi on this unit and just hardwire over to an amplifyHD wireless router (previously an apple airport extreme) as I like the configuration and capabilities of those routers better than the old ASUS. (To simplify, I only use the asus as a tether and power for the mobly; I use the amplifyHD for all wireless and routing (also attached to a couple of GB switches)). 

I also have the TMobile AC1900 router.  When I tethered the Mobley to it, it would not go to certain websites.  I read online that I needed to change the dns, so I tried several different ones with no luck.

Did you have that problem?  Did you change the dns setttings?  What settings did you use?

Thanks.

[Carlos]

I will be testing the Mobley with a GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext tomorrow.  I'll run a full suite of tests for protocol compliance and performance in a known test environment.  While performance will be slower with their cheaper routers, you can expect functionality to be the same.

 

[Carlos]

22 hours ago, chirakawa said:

I also have the TMobile AC1900 router.  When I tethered the Mobley to it, it would not go to certain websites.  I read online that I needed to change the dns, so I tried several different ones with no luck.

Did you have that problem?  Did you change the dns setttings?  What settings did you use?

Thanks.

 

EDIT:  I removed something that didn't actually help.  Please see below for what should fix the DNS issue.

[k4rs]

20 hours ago, Carlos said:

While performance will be slower with their cheaper routers, you can expect functionality to be the same.

I have found that using the AR750 on 5 GHz is faster than connecting directly to the Mobley on 2.4 GHz.  I attribute this to the fact that there is considerable congestion on 2.4 GHz.   Sort of like driving on the Interstate Highway during rush hour versus flying down a deserted country road.

Safe Travels...

 

[pappy437]

Back to the drawing board. GL.iNET GL-MT300N-V2 came,I plugged in power and didn't even get a power light,it's going back.I think I need to find someone to do this for be anyway.But living in the sticks makes it kind of hard to do.

[Carlos]

2 hours ago, k4rs said:

I have found that using the AR750 on 5 GHz is faster than connecting directly to the Mobley on 2.4 GHz.  I attribute this to the fact that there is considerable congestion on 2.4 GHz.   Sort of like driving on the Interstate Highway during rush hour versus flying down a deserted country road.

Safe Travels...

 

There are a number of factors, that's certainly one of them.  In crowded spectrum, the radio signal hits interference.  But even without that, the Mobley just has a very slow processor, less memory, and very small antennas.  The AR750 has a rather good processor and lots of memory, with better antennas.  It takes power to encapsulate and encode the data over the radio carriers, while sending it over USB takes much less effort.  So the Mobley can do that more quickly, and let the other router handle the wifi work.  The Mobley is also limited to 20MHz wide channels, and I believe the AR probably uses 40Mhz (I cannot find this documented, but based on the speed, I would guess so.)

 

49 minutes ago, pappy437 said:

Back to the drawing board. GL.iNET GL-MT300N-V2 came,I plugged in power and didn't even get a power light,it's going back.I think I need to find someone to do this for be anyway.But living in the sticks makes it kind of hard to do.

That tells us that the problem is a dead router, bad cable, or dead power supply.  So try another power supply and another cable.  If you get no power light still, then just exchange the router.

 

[Carlos]

Success!

Test environment:

ZTEVM6200 (Mobley)
Generic USB-A to micro-USB cable & HamkotDirect USB to OBD power cable
GL.iNet GL-AR750S-Ext, latest stock firmware
iMac 5k

Talking directly to the Mobley, speed tests were typically 26-30Mbps down and 12-14 up.  Note that I'm sort of outside the city, and have just "OK" coverage here.  The device is sitting on a wood shelf indoors.  Speed through the router was generally slightly better by about 15% on average, and more stable.  Meaning that it was more likely to stay fast, rather than fluctuate like it does through the native connection.

The AR750 saw the Mobley automatically.  It didn't auto-configure, but it had a button to do so.  I clicked it, and nothing happened.  Looks like it has to be configured manually, so I did that, and it was online within seconds.  Here are the manual settings:

Device:  /dev/ttyUSB1
Service:  LTE/UMTS/GPRS
APN:  broadband

DO NOT set anything else on this screen.  The rest (under "more") should be blank.

Now you MUST set a custom DNS.  For whatever reason, the router can't auto-acquire DNS from AT&T.  So go to "More settings" then "Custom DNS server."  Enable "Manual DNS server settings" and put the following into the two DNS lines (you can use any DNS server, but this is what I use):
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Adding an external antenna would of course help with the cell signal.  I have dozens of antenna connectors laying around...EXCEPT the MS156 type that this uses.  Sigh.  I'll grab an SMA adapter at some point and give that a try (SMA is fairly standard for cell antennas and amplifiers).

[lockmup68]

On 1/29/2019 at 1:30 PM, chirakawa said:

I also have the TMobile AC1900 router.  When I tethered the Mobley to it, it would not go to certain websites.  I read online that I needed to change the dns, so I tried several different ones with no luck.

Did you have that problem?  Did you change the dns setttings?  What settings did you use?

Thanks.

use google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, no issues. 

[chirakawa]

1 hour ago, lockmup68 said:

use google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, no issues. 

Thanks.  I tried those, I think that's Google.  There were four or five websites that it would not open, don't remember which ones.  I gave up and used my old WifiRanger.

[Carlos]

If you want to give me some specific domains, I can test them.  I generally use those Google DNS servers on all of my company servers and they work perfectly.  I don't normally use them for client side for a few reasons.

 

[pappy437]

Hey I got it to work,now if I could get rid of the timer. I ended up using a GL-INET  GL-AR300M wireless router. Wireless from Mobley eithernet to router. Stuff comes in and stuff goes out,don't ask me how. Just luck and a lot of Google. Like I said before way above my pay grade. Thanks for the ideas.

[Carlos]

If the time-out is hard coded, there's no way around that.  My understanding (I don't know for sure), is that the current firmware turns off the service after two hours of being on, right?  If it's being powered from an AC outlet, there are plenty of devices out there that can power cycle a router when they detect connection loss.  Or you can use a $10 timer set to cycle every hour.  For those of us using it from DC, I'm not sure there's an easy solution.