I am currently living with my parents and we have just started an Internet contract with a 5G wireless company.
The issue is the MFND settings are behind a password and likely not allowed access by the ISP. Even if they weren’t doing port forwarding on 5G likely isn’t possible because of CGNAT. I think I can use cloudflare tunnels or tailscale to get around this, and not many things need to be directly accessible from the Internet.
The more annoying thing is that setting DHCP reservations likely isn’t possible without getting access to the settings. It’s going to make setting up static IPs difficult too.
Before anyone asks fixed line Internet almost certainly isn’t practical in this area. Getting our own modem while possible is more expensive and potentially difficult, and would mean cancelling the contract.
Is there a reasonable way to work around these issues?
Any help or advice would be appreciated.
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First off get your own router. You can pickup a device capable of running OpenWRT from Walmart, Bestbuy or most other stores.
Once that’s done you will have way more control. For remote access I would use Netbird and if you need to expose services use a VPS and wireguard.
I already have a router from another house. Not helpful given it doesn’t have 5G. Also walmart? I am not an American lol.
So what this would actually mean, is cancelling a 24 month contract, buying two devices, one a 5G modem, and another to run OpenWRT, for well over £300. Shipping the other device back to the ISP. All with no guarantee any of it will work, given my experience with buying cellular modems previously. This would take probably 1 week plus, and cause more disruption to my parents after having already moved house and one of them being in hospital. That’s not taking into account anything that goes wrong with using OpenWRT, which is any number of things given it’s unofficial firmware that I have no previous experience with.
Yeah no that’s not going to happen. They aren’t going to go for that and honestly I don’t blame them that’s a horrible deal, even if I pay for half the equipment.
You totally misunderstood. I’m recommending that you keep your current modem and plug a new router into it. That will give you the control you are looking for.
A new device won’t run you £300. If you are ok with WiFi 5 you can get one for about £50
Where would I find a device that could run DDWRT or OpenWRT? WiFi 6 is basically a minimum requirement at this point given I already have a WiFi 6 router and WiFi 6 devices. It would be silly downgrading just for the sake of using WRT.
I don’t live in your area so I can’t really say. I personally have a Linksys EA8500 that works pretty well but OpenWRT supports about 2000 devices so chances are you can find something that is supported.
Just make sure to avoid Broadcom
