A few months back, Three Ireland came out with an LTE broadband offer: Unlimited* LTE broadband for EUR30 per month. It did come with a 18 month contract, but I pulled the trigger and got it as a backup link. I picked this up in the local Three store, and they had a couple of options for modems: a couple of Huawei mobile Wifi hotspots (E5573 or E5577) or a Huawei B525 Modem, which is designed for home use. Alternatively, there was a Sim only option, but given the modem was free with the contact, i went with the B525.
The B525 is not a bad router, don’t get me wrong, but its a Router… i already have a few of them, including my Mikrotik RouterBoard CCR1016-12G, an EdgeRouter POE, a Ubiquiti USG 3 and some virtual ones too… yea, don’t ask… What i wanted was a modem; no WiFi, no routing, and give me a full, non NATted IP to the internet. There was some mention of some of the Huawei modems being able to be put into bridge mode, but i could not find out how to do it… That’s where the Netgear LB2120 comes in.
The LB2120 (there are a few different models, but mine is the Europe edition) has a Micro SIM Slot,a WAN and a LAN port (both GigE), Power in, Power button and 2 inputs for Aerials.
The home page is fairly basic, and gives you all you need: how much data you’ve used, how much you have left, when the data plan resets, etc.
There is also an alerts option, so you can get it to send you an SMS when something happens:
But the relay handy stuff is under Advanced setting/LAN:
You have the option of using it as a router, or using it in a Bridge. Needless to say, i bridged it and got a fully public IP. Currently, mine is hooked up to the second WAN port of the USG, and is currently serving about 30-40% of the traffic on that network (mostly media devices, IOT stuff, etc). Speed wise, its not bad.
Not as good as a hardwired connection, but its only getting 4 bars, and its about 1km to the nearest cell tower. I do want to get some external aerials for it, to see if i can boost the download/upload speed, but we will see. Also, i plan on changing out the Mikrotik for something else… lets see what i end up with!
*Unlimited is mobile network speak for 750GB per month… which does not sound very unlimited to me… but, anyway…
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