Mofi 4500 VPN disables WIFI

[DonovanG03]

Hello again! Using the Mofi 4500.... Starting to hate this thing. Everytime I turn on my vpn from their vast options of PureVPN, Nord, and Express.... Woohooo. You can aslo use any openvpn provider or make your own. I have my own open vpn but for something else.
Anyways, back on topic. I'm using PureVPN. I turn it on a bam, mofi 4500 shuts off my wifi. I was thinking maybe it's something with their ip passthrough but it doesn't make sense to me why that would be the case. LAN works fine. The vpn works but I don't currently have another router to use to work around this issue.

Would anyone know why this stupid thing keeps shutting my wifi off upon connection?! I'm trying to stream movies and port forward for games here!!! Yikes! I don't want to use Mofi cloud because I need a server close to where I live and I don't know if they can provide that... Anyways, any help is appreciated! Don't tell me to junk it tho already dumped too much in.. sorry for the long post I'm on the pooper at 5 in the morning. Tired and bored what can I say

[56387f]

Anyways, back on topic. I'm using PureVPN. I turn it on a bam, mofi 4500 shuts off my wifi.

Could you please define "shuts off"?

I was thinking maybe it's something with their ip passthrough but it doesn't make sense to me why that would be the case. LAN works fine. The vpn works but I don't currently have another router to use to work around this issue.

Does that mean that you are using passthrough mode, you have a client connected to the LAN, therefore you can check that the tunnel is established, your external IP is correct (i.e. this is the remote VPN server's IP), DNS works (you can surf the internet in the browser using domain names)? Something like that?

[DonovanG03]

Yes. I have my pc connect to lan and everything is working fine. The wifi turns off completely. Light and everything. Pretty sure the ip passthrough is actually the cause.

[56387f]

Pretty sure the ip passthrough is actually the cause.

when ip passthrough is ON then the external IP is passed to the device connected the _specific LAN port:

https://support.unlimitedville.com/supp ... ridge-mode

if you know how to config OpenWrt you can reassign the port receiving the external IP. But if the tower allocates only one external IP address for your modem (and this is what it does in 99% of all cases, they run their own DHCP server on their network) then you will NEVER have more than 1 device (connected to the MOFI) getting an external IP - that is why in ip passthrough mode you need another router performing NAT and allowing multiple clients to share the same, SINGLE external IP address.

[DonovanG03]

Okay. Here's another question for ya. On my phone connected to my pc I get a average pung of 60-70. On my mofi I get a ping of 100-300 and it's all over the place. No idea what's happening. I get better signal and everything. Even tried the same bands and towers. I have two towers less than 2 miles from me.

[56387f]

Okay. Here's another question for ya. On my phone connected to my pc I get a average pung of 60-70. On my mofi I get a ping of 100-300 and it's all over the place. No idea what's happening. I get better signal and everything. Even tried the same bands and towers. I have two towers less than 2 miles from me.

Again, not knowing what kind of phone you are talking about is hard to give a precise answer.
I think your phone has a much better modem and this is not surprising. This is not to say that MC7455 in your MOFI is garbage, simply put, being a CAT 6 model it cannot be compared with more expensive cell phone modems (my Samsung S10 has CAT 20 modem).

MC 7455 - 100$

https://www.amazon.com/MC7455-Sierra-Mo ... B07QXXHCN3
https://source.sierrawireless.com/devic ... es/mc7455/

Theoretically you can upgrade it and use a more expensive/advanced one but personally I don't think it is not worth it since it still will be a modem -> cell phones will always have higher priority on the network than modems. In other words, you can have a great modem but the traffic on the tower can be shaped in a way that no matter what modem you use the good cell phone will beat it

[Didneywhorl]

MOFI4500 SIM4 has a Sierra Wireless MC7455 (Cat6 2x Carrier Aggregation capable), but the MOFI4500 SIM7 has the Quectel EC25AF, a cat4 modem with no Carrier Aggregation. Which version do you have, DonovanG03?

[DonovanG03]

The Sim7 version.

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

since it still will be a modem -> cell phones will always have higher priority on the network than modems

Please, I would appreciate some more information on this as this detail will affect the modems I purchase.

Where can I confirm that this is the case and which of the big 3 actually are known to do this?

Quectel EC25AF

The Quectel EC25AF might not have CA but I believe CA should not improve latency, only throughput.

DonovanG03, I would appreciate if you could log which bands the phone and the EC25AF are on and what latency you note on each.

[56387f]

Please, I would appreciate some more information on this as this detail will affect the modems I purchase.

Hello,
Please don't get me wrong, I am not an expert on mobile communication nor I work for one of those companies. Just general information, partially collected from the open sources, partially learned through own experience.

As I understand you are wondering why modems may (and most likely will for some rare cases) work differently comparing to cell phones (internet quality wise since otherwise, each cell phone includes the modem).

First of all, people getting modems and hotspot offen think/plan/want to use mobile internet in the same way as they would use wired (any kind, ADSL, fiber, etc) internet connection (high traffic caps,/sometimes - none / high speeds). But looks like wireless network operators don't like this idea (unlimited internet on full speed for all users) - this is why they don't offer (to the best of my knowledge, at least for individuals and I know almost nothing about corporate/business) plans like 1TB of internet data on unlimited speed for _any_ money (because I am pretty much certain people would be ready to pay significant amount for this kind of service, but it does not exist).
They simply cannot because the towers have limited capacity i.e. put it simply several users downloading torrents at full speed 24x7 will make the life of other users connected to the same tower miserable. Yes, they can use different ways of traffic shaping , like letting you download 30 GB at full speed and after that either limit your speed to 0.1 Mbps or pause your service.
The majority of users who try to use mobile internet as it was described above (they may have certain reasons for that like -"I am on the move all the time, I work using mobile internet because this is the only option" - all those reasons make sense to them) - are the users with modems, cell phones in tethering mode etc and not the actual users of cell phones (of course there are exceptions).
There is another group - people leaving in rural area, wireless network operators may provide them with special plans, equipment etc.

Anyway back on the subject:

a) you want to check this link (great summary of almost all detection techniques)
https://android.stackexchange.com/quest ... i-hotspot

b) what kind of fingerprint can be used to detect the modem:
https://wirelessjoint.com/viewtopic.php?f=10 ... 6718#p6673

Now I guess the next question will be "what can I do about it" ,right?

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

OK, thank you, I see what you mean. I misunderstood your statement so thank you for clarifying.

I looked at your analysis of the, uhm, weird, network activity that the MOFI does including hardcoded IP addresses and heartbeating and am really glad I did not get the MOFI.

For one, if MOFI continues to do this, segregating MOFI traffic by an ISP will be trivial.

It seems extremely short sighted on their part at best and planned obsolescence at worst.

Your analysis is highly appreciated.

[56387f]

heartbeating and am really glad I did not get the MOFI.
For one, if MOFI continues to do this, segregating MOFI traffic by an ISP will be trivial.
It seems extremely short sighted on their part at best and planned obsolescence at worst.

Let me respectfully disagree with you. Have you seen what is written on the top of MOFI's case?
It is written "High Performance business class Rugged Enterprise Extended Range Router". This is a heavy duty metal case with ears to be securely attached to something.

I guess "business class" is because MOFI is a pretty feature reach device - for example VNP between several MOFIs, ability to load the config into the device remotely and more. In other words if you own a number of small buses and want to monitor their location in real time - MOFI is one of the possible candidates for that. For task like that 50 UP and 300 Down is more than enough. Plus, in this case MOFI would be used as a device for sending telemetry to the server (may be even using a special corporate "telemetry only" plan) - do you see how it is different from someone who bought it in hope to play computer games (fast ping, law latency, high speed is required) using his cell phone data plan?
So the owner of the buses simply wants to pay money and get the working solution (for example 15 devices at once) instead of assembling each device from pieces - this is (in my view) what MOFI is about.

That is why I am pretty much sure that MOFI does not even care about hiding its identity - there is no need for that.
I have read that many people had success with this device in the past,but looks like now the situation is slowly changing, the device is getting older etc etc.

[LoveMeSomeCALTE]

Your analysis makes sense. I can only hope those purchasing the MOFI for home internet discover your post and realize they are not the target audience.

In that case, I even see MOFI sacrificing these home internet users from who they get a few hundred dollars for their lifetime so that they can build good relationships with the cellular providers which enables them to win millions of dollars of contracts a year from these fleet companies.

[56387f]

In that case, I even see MOFI sacrificing these home internet users from who they get a few hundred dollars for their lifetime so that they can build good relationships with the cellular providers which enables them to win millions of dollars of contracts a year from these fleet companies.

This is interesting that you mentioned that. To tell the truth I could never understand how (I think it should be an expensive and lengthy procedure) MOFI became approved by some big cellular providers i.e. MOFI is being recommended (at least in the past) to the end users together with other big brands.

[Didneywhorl]

It is a VERY expensive process to get carrier certified. MOFI did a great job of setting themselves up in this niche. regardless of their lack of customer service. It's almost uncanny how many people come here to get support. I say bring them here all day, more info the better for this forum.