Huawei B525s-65a port forwarding issues

Moved home recently and decided to use 4G for my home broadband. Its connecting OK but I'm getting nowhere trying to port forward to allow the likes of emby and plex servers to function outside my LAN.

Does anyone have any experience of this type of setup that can help?

I am setting up what I think is correct in the virtual servers settings but when I try to check if the ports are open they are always closed. I have tried this on both linux a windows for the last 10 days.

Any fixes greatly appreciated

Your mobile provider is probably doing carrier grade NAT, which is essentially the same as being behind an additional router that you cannot set up any port forwarding on.

If you are on EE using IPv4 that is the case, with IPv6 you may not have an issue. Other networks are different (Three, Vodafone, O2 etc).

This thread may help and describes an option one poster took:
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/mobilebroadband/f/4...

Thanks I'm on VM which is EE of course

It is probable that you are up against a limitation of EE's mobile network. The EE mobile network uses Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT), which means that you don't get your own public IP address but share it with other users. So you can't be uniquely id'ed on the Net & therefore your LAN cannot be addressed from outside for unsolicited accesses. This is unlike fixed BB.

Just on the off-chance can you set the APN Protocol to IPv4 only in your router's APN/Profile? This may get round it. I don't understand why this is so.

Will give that a go

Not just EE, but O2 and Vodafone similarly. Three has two APNs, one of which may remove CGNAT.

The problem is all ISPs will have eventually, there are no IPv4 addresses left. So to have an internet connection, at some point an IPv4 address has to be shared. The same as your home router does sharing an IP, it has to be done in the network, sharing an IP with lots of customers.

The only solution is IPv6 which EE contract customers get, but it is not clear if this is available to VM or any other MVNO.

Yes, I was just addressing the OP who is on VM who piggy-back on EE.

Dealing with EE mobile router users it appears to me that it used to work when the EE mobile network was IPv4 but stopped working when EE switched to IPv6. Hence my suggestion to amend the APN to IPV4 Only if at all possible. Some such users have confirmed that this works for them.

Setting to IPv4 means on EE (and I don't think VM use the same core network anymore) does not solve the CGNAT problem. It might solve other problems.

"Piggy back" may be too simplistic. An MVNO of the size of VM (Virgin Mobile) are capable of running their own core, and only buying radio access network from EE (BT plc).

It is not the same as 'branding' which many smaller MVNOs are doing.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 20-Feb-19 22:00:38)