getting some bandwidth in the sticks..

after being stuck in a newbuild dead-spot with no hopes of FTTP and a FTTPoD quote of 13k install (ouch) I decided to do some investigation on DIY high-speed-internet.

The results speak for themselves -
https://www.speedtest.net/result/9554028449.png

This is done using multiple 4G modems and a poor performing 30/5 FTTC line being combined to give one fat pipe...

My setup -

ee - Mikrotik CAT5 SXT-LTE pointed directly at the mast. (95%+ signal) - could probably do better wih a higher CAT modem with CA?

three - Sierra Wireless MC7455 with Carrier Aggregation (Band3, Band 20) with a USB3 adapter cradle running on a WDR3600 (much cheaper option than the SXT, and better performing)

talktalk - 30/5 FTTC (going to cancel it if this solution proves reliable)

VPS - internet aggregation point for the connections. using 'portfast' here but have tried 'OVH' too which works just as well.

Virtual machine running https://www.openmptcprouter.com/. This is awesome - instead of traditional load balancing it uses multipath TCP to combine multiple internet connections into a single connection and seems to work well with 'unbalanced' connections of different speeds/latencies.

all connections appear on the internet from a single IP - no problems with SSL and able to get full speed on a single stream.

OpenMPTCPRouter can run on any OpenWRT capable device I believe - going to move it from physical server hardware when i get another router ordered that can handle it.

Might help someone else get high-speed internet in the sticks. Total cost is < £100/pm including the VPS.

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Jun-20 23:43:49)

Nice setup

I was looking at the Mikrotik products but am I right in saying that they only have 100 Base-T Ethernet connections which would limit your maximum download speed to 100Mbps.
Do they do any products with a GiGe connection?

I would avoid mikrotik for 4G to be honest - the SXT LTE6 still has a 100mbit interface. I cant seem to get more than 100mbit even with carrier aggregation on another 4g modem which does not have this limitation - I tried.

Mikrotik recently released a new consumer product that has a gig port and a decent (CAT12?) modem but not sure if its any good - its also pricey at £200 or so

https://linitx.com/product/mikrotik-chateau-home-rou...

I would double check your able to get more than 100mbit downstream anyway - my experience of three out here (band 3, 20 only) and carrier aggregation max I have managed is about 109mbit.

plenty of choice of mikrotik (non-4g) routers that are gig capable though or you could buy one with a minipci slot and install your own modem which would give you a gig port.

Edited by deleted (Fri 05-Jun-20 17:39:43)

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

I would double check your able to get more than 100mbit downstream anyway - my experience of three out here (band 3, 20 only) and carrier aggregation max I have managed is about 109mbit.

Sounds as if you are on Three with Band 3 (15mhz) and Band 20 (5mhz) and a CA device you are getting a maximum of 20mhz of spectrum.

If rural, other networks are unlikely to have deployed any CA, but you would would normally find EE with Band 3 (20mhz), or Vodafone or O2 with Band 20 (10mhz) as their base layers.

Good effort, have you tried a 3CA mobile on EE?


I've been out in the sticks testing in EE in the past and be absolutely amazed at some of the speeds on 3CA. Way over 200Mb.

If I could get that here I think I'd probably ditch their fiber.

nope - its in a CAT5 modem which doesn't support CA that is connected to that network. sounds worth a shot though - i might get another 4g modem and replace the mikrotik and see how that performs.

the ee mast also has band 3 and 20. so 2CA only that I am aware of

Download CellMapper and see if you can see what bands are transmitting from your local mast.

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

the ee mast also has band 3 and 20. so 2CA only that I am aware of

Interesting they added 20, it might be a push for extended rural voice coverage.

My local mast (in a town) only has band 3, but we have two deployments, 20mhz + 15mhz, and it was a cheaper install than adding new transmitter panels. Before lockdown I could regularly see 150+ Mbps, but now thanks to everyone at home, speeds can fall to around 15 Mbps quite often. Still only 2CA, but needs a device that can do 3+3 CA.

Not all masts are set up to CA, sometimes the mast will prioritise and push any connection that can see both b20 an b3 up to the b3; saving the b20 for those further away.

think it would be worthwhile upgrading to a device that can do 4x MIMO? cant tell if the mast supports that or not.

was looking at one of these for ee - https://ltefix.com/shop/modems/quectel-modems/quecte...

Edited by deleted (Sat 06-Jun-20 11:05:22)

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

think it would be worthwhile upgrading to a device that can do 4x MIMO? cant tell if the mast supports that or not.

Less likely in rural areas, unfortunately hard to tell about the mast unless you have a rooted qualcomm based android phone (e.g. OnePlus) which you can run Network Signal Guru on.

was looking at one of these for ee - https://ltefix.com/shop/modems/quectel-modems/quecte...

That looks impressive, I assume the module contains a Qualcomm chip. It would need to connet to 4 antennas I presume!

yeah 4 antennas. can get them cheap on aliexpress. qualcomm chip.

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

yeah 4 antennas. can get them cheap on aliexpress. qualcomm chip.

It won't hurt, but may not provide any improvement in speed. Some upgraded masts have 4T4R (4 transmit, 4 receive) and this helps all handsets.

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

after being stuck in a newbuild dead-spot with no hopes of FTTP and a FTTPoD quote of 13k install (ouch) I decided to do some investigation on DIY high-speed-internet.

<...snip...>

Might help someone else get high-speed internet in the sticks. Total cost is < £100/pm including the VPS.

I’ve been reading through your post a couple of times and also looked at the openmptcrouter (OMR) website and can’t quite work out how this is set up. The OMR documentation on the website is very lacking and the only YouTube videos I can find are all in French.

From my interpretation on the OMR website, the devices (PC/Phone etc.) connect to the OMR first (I assume installed on something like a Raspberry Pi), which in turn have the VDSL/4g modems connected to it and the modems then connect to the VPS via ports.

However from your description, it sounds like you have Modems connected to a standard wifi router first and have the OMR software installed on the VPS machine and not on physical hardware (Raspberry Pi?) at your home and presumably connected the modems & OMR via ports?

Which way is correct, assuming my interpretation of both is correct or am I completely getting it wrong?

>I’ve been reading through your post a couple of times and also looked at the openmptcrouter >>(OMR) website and can’t quite work out how this is set up. The OMR documentation on the >website is very lacking and the only YouTube videos I can find are all in French.

it's reasonably complicated. will do my best to answer.

>From my interpretation on the OMR website, the devices (PC/Phone etc.) connect to the OMR >first (I assume installed on something like a Raspberry Pi), which in turn have the VDSL/4g >modems connected to it and the modems then connect to the VPS via ports.

Yes. so the basic setup is something like this -

laptop -> wireless access point -> OMR -> (3 WANs - in this case three routers). OMR uses "shadowsocks" and a tunnel which it creates itself to your VPS - there is a VPS setup script you need to run on the VPS.

once you have a device running OMR, you just configure the wan ports on it to each of your internet connections. it will ask you for the IP of the VPS server, you download a script on the VPS server to install the OMR configuration - it needs to be debian10.

>However from your description, it sounds like you have Modems connected to a standard wifi >router first and have the OMR software installed on the VPS machine and not on physical >hardware (Raspberry Pi?) at your home and presumably connected the modems & OMR via ports?

what I have is quite complicated because I had no spare hardware to run OMR on. OMR can run anywhere, it just needs to be the gateway that all your machines are using. OMR needs to run locally (e.g. on a PI) as well as the OMR script on the VPS. OMR needs to be your pc's default gateway.

i.e. everything => OMR => Internet

>Which way is correct, assuming my interpretation of both is correct or am I completely getting >it wrong?

neither is technically wrong, you can do a 'router-on-a-stick' (which is what im currently doing - my wan devices are all plugged into the same switch with DHCP disabled on them - DHCP is only enabled on OMR) but separating everything out is certainly easier to understand.

the only bit that actually matters if all cabled together via a switch is 1) you only have one dhcp server on your network (which is omr) and 2) your devices using the internet all use omr as their gateway.

e.g. if using 2 random wan devices -

AP -> Switch - (192.168.0.0/24 - bridged to LAN)
OMR -> Switch (192.168.0.1/24 - LAN, 192.168.1.2/24 - WAN1 - Gateway 192.168.1.1, 192.168.2.2/24 - WAN2 - Gateway 192.186.1.1)

WAN1 -> Switch (192.168.1.1/24 - DHCP Disabled or vlan)
WAN2 -> Switch (192.168.2.1/24 - DHCP Disabled or vlan)

OMR will let you create multiple interfaces on the same physical interface to do 'router-on-a-stick'.

Edited by deleted (Tue 09-Jun-20 23:57:58)

Thank you for your reply.

That description does help a lot, it sort of confirms my thoughts of how the physical hardware set up works.

I shall attempt to try and get this to work now I have a basic idea of the setup, although I it could be beyond my knowledge levels but that's part of the fun trying.

half the fun is 'because I can' feel free to pm me or post here if you need help.

Hi
I am looking to move to a rural location with limited adsl/vdsl so am looking at doing something similar.

How are you getting on with this now? Has it been reliable over the last few months and have you made any upgrades?

Thanks

just curious which VPS service are you using?

did you actually have a conversation with the reset of your new build residents to see if there was something to do collectivelty - FOD in a new build estate is the worst answe to the worst question ever

no, i only found out about community fibre partnerships recently. it looks like we may be earmarked for FTTP and virgin media rollout next year anyway by the way things are going

I was using portfast for a while - wont have heard of it. small business provider but it has good peering down in london so the speeds were pretty spot on.

tried ovh london too, worked but was a bit hit/miss

its been reasonably robust - not had to change it about much. changed vps provider and tried a few of them out to see what works and what does not.

noticed that sometimes i need to restart the bonding solution after one of the 4g links dies, but there appears to be a fix released for the software to fix that.

if i was doing this again id also likely drop the mikrotik SXT LTE - the one im using isnt capable of carrier aggregation. (cat5 not cat6)

oh and i dropped talktalk a while ago 2x 4g only now.

Edited by deleted (Wed 18-Nov-20 00:21:45)