Dongle LTE limited to 7 Mpbs, Help

[flogger]

Hello community.
For several months that Im trying to get the best solution for my Asus AC-87U with a Huawei E3276 which is 4G.
After several different configs I realized that with the Huawei in HiLink mode it hanged a lot.
So, I switched the firmware of the Huawei to be pure modem, no HiLink.
When the dongle is plugged on a computer, I get speeds of 60 Mbps which is great.
The problem is when I plug it to the router to be the source internet provider, the speeds I get never pass 7 or 8 Mbps.
This seems to me to be some sort of issue with the router drivers loaded or smth like that. I have the latest version from Merlin firmware.

Can anyone help me out on how to load the proper drivers or how to set up things by ssh command line of the router to see if I can get the same 60 Mbps speed when plugged to the router.

Thanks!

 

[Speedy1205]

not sure how its connected to the Router. But when its uses the option driver and ppp than you will probably not get the speed as on the PC. My cuts off by 16 Mbps what is also slow. On the PC I get almost 70 Mbps.

when you use it as Hilink stick than you should be fine, but you need to plug the USB switch with external Power supply as they usual use a bit more energy than the router provides.

This stick should use the cdc_ncm driver which Asus blocked as I understood from the support case.

Checkout this: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=17001&highlight=E3276 there are the latest version with LTE workaround. The last known version is: RT-AC56U_3.0.0.4_374.42_2 just for you router

The Workaround is also there. So you have the choice:
1. use a slow internet connection with the latest router version
2. use fast internet with old router version

I didnt get the modem running in any of the newer version, just with the slow driver where I get the speed limitations

 

[flogger]

Thanks a lot for all your explanation @Speedy1205 ! Really appreciated.

when you use it as Hilink stick than you should be fine, but you need to plug the USB switch with external Power supply as they usual use a bit more energy than the router provides.

Could this power be whats provoking the hanging in my dongle? Cause with HiLink mode, yes, I get good speeds, but its not a stable connection, I cant even watch a youtube video without long stops and loosing connection to youtube server, which is not consistent with 70 Mbps.... Weird ha?

This stick should use the cdc_ncm driver which Asus blocked as I understood from the support case.

Yep, this I knew and I was doublechecking in this latest release from merlin the driver is there and for what I see in the system logs it is loaded together with another 10 different ones ehehhe.
Anyway the system logs show lots of errors with the loading and connection of the dongle.

So I will try out the workarounds manually that are shown in the link you gave to see how it goes.

If not, I will try the HiLink again with extra power supply...?

Ill share my findings after.

Thanks once again

 

[Speedy1205]

USB switch with external power supply worked much better for me. You should give it a try. In which version is the Hilink version working ?

I tried in the last version, but a different Hilink and it didn't work. And how you got the 2 firmwares for it ? Maybe I will make mine back to hilink also

 

[flogger]

I dont have the number versions here, but I'll post them later when I get home.

The modem version is in major 21.xxxx and the HiLink are on the 22.xxxx.
What I thought odd is that when I got the latest version for Hilink I get smth that I never had before, if i look at the main screen of huawei dongle home page its showing full signal in LTE and then flicks to no signal, and then flicks to full, and then to none, really weird....

Tonight I'll post here my findings with the modem and I'll post the version numbers of the Huawei firmwares.

 

[Speedy1205]

I dont have the number versions here, but I'll post them later when I get home.

The modem version is in major 21.xxxx and the HiLink are on the 22.xxxx.
What I thought odd is that when I got the latest version for Hilink I get smth that I never had before, if i look at the main screen of huawei dongle home page its showing full signal in LTE and then flicks to no signal, and then flicks to full, and then to none, really weird....

Tonight I'll post here my findings with the modem and I'll post the version numbers of the Huawei firmwares.

yeah well good I just made mine back to hilink and it works even in the last release of Firmware (Asus) I have my PublicIP and I could forward ports from the modem to the endpoint, so I guess I will leave it in Hilink Mode..... The speed is also not so bad

 

[cyborgpunte]

what ??

Could you please post an URL or file so I can download Hilink-flash to my e3276s-150.

So I can try again, didn't work @Hilink earlier so flashed it to 21.436.03.00.00 w/o dashboard.

 

[numbat]

yeah well good I just made mine back to hilink and it works even in the last release of Firmware (Asus) I have my PublicIP and I could forward ports from the modem to the endpoint, so I guess I will leave it in Hilink Mode..... The speed is also not so bad

Speedy1205 please share your configuration, I've moved to Hilink FW of my Huawei 3276 but I'm stuck how to run Hilink modem on latest merlin 374.49_4

 

[flogger]

yeah well good I just made mine back to hilink and it works even in the last release of Firmware (Asus) I have my PublicIP and I could forward ports from the modem to the endpoint, so I guess I will leave it in Hilink Mode..... The speed is also not so bad

@Speedy1205 I was trying the workaround on that link you gave and no luck with the commands on the router shell. Errors and more errors.
I guess I will revert to the Hilink version and get hispeeds but unstable connection.

Anyway, as I promised here I list the firmware versions I have for that Huawei Dongle:

Non HiLink - Modem only
21.436.03.00.00

HiLink - NO Modem
22.470.13.00.00 with WEBUI 17.100.03.01.03

My other problem with HiLink is that the router then doesnt get the public IP address but one attributed by the dongle, which is internal, and therefore DDNS doesnt work etc...

You said in this post I quoted above that you can get the router to get the public IP address from the dongle. How do you do that??

 

[cyborgpunte]

Found them, thanks
It's called double NAT

............22.470.13.00.00 with WEBUI 17.100.03.01.03

........ router then doesnt get the public IP address but one attributed by the dongle, which is internal, and therefore DDNS doesnt work etc...
...........

 

[SebZab]

You said in this post I quoted above that you can get the router to get the public IP address from the dongle. How do you do that??

You must establish connection via openvpn serwer which have got public IP or to buy public IP service from your LTE operator.

Wysłane z mojego GT-I9300 za pomocą Tapatalk 2

 

[Speedy1205]

After testing all night and a bit today the result is like this:
back to 374.42_2 and NCM driver ....

Problem Hilink: I have a public IP (LTE) and I have a ftp / https server running so I need Ports forwarded to the router and from there to the server. Its working with my old stick 353Ws-2 where I can Plug it in to Windows and and add the ports to be forwarded with the IP which would be the router. With the E3276 Hilink it is modeswitching always when I plug it in to the router and this removes the settings for Port forwards. So I need to use the NCM driver....

Anyway the hilink version is working fine in all releases till the last one. Just need to add a small services-start script/

#!/bin/sh
#sleep 3
modprobe cdc_ether
sleep 2
ifconfig usb0 up
udhcpc -i usb0 -p /var/run/udhcpc1.pid -s /tmp/udhcpc &

Just not sure about the interface if it was usb0 or eth3 :-( To much switched last night between AsusWrt and DD-WRT. In DD-WRT i didn't get any of them running, not the Hilink and not the NCM. Normal ppp works but its soo slooooow.....

So now I`ll wait till there are packages available for my R7500 OpenWrt and I need to go with this.

anyway will try to play today with latest build and NCM Driver. Even opened a case with ASUS support .... but I give up as they didn't get the basics. They told that LTE is not supported..... And I showed the webpages where its written that it does..... anyway lot of email conversation, but when they don't know what you talking about than it doesn't make sense. And I gave up. They told the Hardware doesn't support ....

 

[flogger]

Found them, thanks
It's called double NAT

Yes I know it's double NAT. What I would like to know is, is there any config we can make so that the router gets the public IP address?

Because if the dongle is with modem firmware instead of hilink, thats what happens, router does everything ok, the problem is I got speed limit of 7Mbps and therefore I'm changing right now to Hilink again but then I loose all the good stuff of the router knowing the public IP address and registering the DDNS and be able to receive connections directly.

I'm just sad that this stuff should be things ready to work out of the box without any need for all of us to be exploring and trying stuff around and getting nowhere.... It's so frustrating....

 

[flogger]

Well after too much experimenting I give up.
Ended up with latest HiLink firmware on the dongle, latest Merlin in Asus router, hi speeds but constant connection drops on the dongle itself (not seen by the router) and no external access to the router.....

BIG CRAP!!!!

 

[Speedy1205]

well I`m happy now.... when you use only LTE, than go with the Shibby Tomato build..... Installed ... added init script and had the fast internet. The Script is from them but works fine. I`m so happy that finally one FW is working.

@RMERLIN its not against you... I still love your builds. But asus is doing all to prevent the LTE speed. I saw also in the logs, when there is LTE modem, than the FW wil unload all modules and try to use the ppp which is slow.... So Asus will never fix this, because they don't want :-(

 

[flogger]

well I`m happy now.... when you use only LTE, than go with the Shibby Tomato build..... Installed ... added init script and had the fast internet. The Script is from them but works fine. I`m so happy that finally one FW is working.

@RMERLIN its not against you... I still love your builds. But asus is doing all to prevent the LTE speed. I saw also in the logs, when there is LTE modem, than the FW wil unload all modules and try to use the ppp which is slow.... So Asus will never fix this, because they don't want :-(

Thanks for all the help.
I'm really sad... Cant go with shibby tomato cause AC87U is not on the list...
I just wanted to make modem work at hispeed instead of crappy HiLink mode that even a video on youtube I cant watch decently.

Its weird that Asus forces the ppp. What do they have to gain with not allowing more?? Its not good marketing....

And I thought by the fact there's the merlin build by @RMerlin, that we would have those sort of things "worked" around. I'm not criticizing @RMerlin, he's only one person and can't be a miracle worker. What I meant is that by now with all the community contributing that we would have a working solution....

 

[Speedy1205]

Thanks for all the help.
I'm really sad... Cant go with shibby tomato cause AC87U is not on the list...
I just wanted to make modem work at hispeed instead of crappy HiLink mode that even a video on youtube I cant watch decently.

Its weird that Asus forces the ppp. What do they have to gain with not allowing more?? Its not good marketing....

And I thought by the fact there's the merlin build by @RMerlin, that we would have those sort of things "worked" around. I'm not criticizing @RMerlin, he's only one person and can't be a miracle worker. What I meant is that by now with all the community contributing that we would have a working solution....

Well there is the Router supported by shibby Tomato:
K26ARM – ARM – only for Broadcom-ARM based routers like: Asus RT-N18U, RT-AC56U, RT-AC68U, Netgear R7000 So it should work on your router also.

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69

Not sure where you checked it, but I can find your router there
Flash the FW, wait 5 minutes at least till the wifi comes up or not Turn off, keep the WPS Button pressed and start the router (keep pressed for 30 seconds) and it will reset the settings. Once was OK for me, but normally
you should do it 3 times.

After this Administration -> Scripts

sleep 2
switch3g
sleep 4
PRODUCT=`cat /tmp/3g.detect`
sleep 2
modprobe cdc_ncm
sleep 3
MODE="AT^NDISDUP=1,1,\"eradata\"" gcom -d /dev/ttyUSB0 -s /etc/gcom/setmode.gcom
sleep 3
service wan restart

Ready

I also created a reconnect script, in case your provider likes to disconnect you https://openlinksys.info/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=18820

But this is for the NCM driver which works great there, getting even 4 MB/s

For me the ncm works better, and Ican use my port forwardings from the pub IP

One more think what you need to understand is the @RMerlin doesn't have a LTE Dongle to test, so he can not much do with this. All the 3G / LTE scripts in the router are difficult anyway already. tried to cheat them, build some own build, but never came to the clue....

 

[flogger]

Well there is the Router supported by shibby Tomato:
K26ARM – ARM – only for Broadcom-ARM based routers like: Asus RT-N18U, RT-AC56U, RT-AC68U, Netgear R7000 So it should work on your router also.

http://tomato.groov.pl/?page_id=69

Not sure where you checked it, but I can find your router there
....

I checked it right there where you say but AC87U is not there. And I was in the downloads section and as I saw specific files for each router version I kept away from it. Only if I try to use the AC68U, but there are differences from this to the AC87U and then I might not have the same performance....

But once again thanks for all your help and continued support to the thread

Cheers

 

[Speedy1205]

I checked it right there where you say but AC87U is not there. And I was in the downloads section and as I saw specific files for each router version I kept away from it. Only if I try to use the AC68U, but there are differences from this to the AC87U and then I might not have the same performance....

But once again thanks for all your help and continued support to the thread

Cheers

Sorry I mixed the numbers :-( Forgot about the big brother

 

[pbefi]

Thank you for your posts Speedy1205! I tested shibby Tomato as you suggested.
I was able to get better download speed (20-30 Mbps) but for some reason i got poor upload speed (<7Mbps).

I like Asuswrt-Merlin and went back to the latest build. Then I remembered, that I have a Raspberry Pi B+ box hanging around, so I configured the Rasberry Pi as a router for my Huawei E3276 LTE/4G dongle and connected Asus RT-AC68U (wan port) to Raspberry Pi B+ (ethernet).

Now download and upload are ok.

I'm still in the "testing phase" so I'll let you know how I end up with the dongle and firmware.