Has anyone set up a USB LTE dongle as a backup route to connect to their HA? I find that my internet connect is usually completely stable until I go away for work or on holiday, then my ISP modem dies and to get internet connectivity back in my house I need to power my ISP modem and firewall off, turn the ISP modem back online, leave it for 10mins then turn on my firewall. I can easily automate this but I’d need to connect to my HA to trigger it as I don’t want it to ever automatically run.
I have the option of connecting the dongle to my firewall as a backup but if I need to hard reset that for any reason it would be better to have another route it. Anyone know if this is possible?
There are various ways and methods, but most people don’t know or forget that most LTE subscriptions are behind an internal ‘firewall’ from the mobile operator. Old IPv4-only is usually Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) and there is no way to add a ‘portforward’ as the operator controls the NAT, not you. So you can’t set up a TCP/IP from external to inside (your home network).
For IPv6 only, there is mostl likely also a firewall and IPv4 is ‘emulated’, so also no inbound connections possible.
If your mobile ISP offers options or special APN, your USB LTE stick might get a publicly accessible IP address with certain or most ports open. Then you can for example ssh into you home. Still your LTE USB stick likely does also its own NAT, so the firmware in there need to offer methods for punching a hole in there.
Otherwise, you need a 3rd party to relay/tunnel (a VPS or so somewhere).
Depending on where you are, your country might have a law that demands that you are allows to connect and use your own modem. And own router. An own modem (coax-cable or DSL-line) can be way more stable. It cost you money of course.
Not sure how the consumer protection is at your location, but where I live I would contact the ISP and get them to supply a modem that works instead of adding cost and workarounds to get it to work. You pay for a service, you should get what you pay for.
Normally I’d agree but in this case they would say the modem is working fine, it’s the firewall that isn’t establishing the connecting correctly. Plus I’m planning on leaving them soon if a new ISP finally gets their network deployed. I already have the LTE dongle so there’s no extra cost there
Get smart plugs with a cloud service for the gear you need to restart, then setup a LTE router and make a network that only have those plugs connected.
Connect the gear you want to restart to the the plugs.
The LTE router and the plugs do then not have a data connection to your normal network and they do not use any services from that network either then.
The cloud service for the plugs will circumvent any CGNat.