I am live in Bulgaria and travel a lot in Greece and other european countries with my camper. Last month I bought a hAP ax lite LTE6. In Bulgaria I have a sim card with data plan that is restricted to be used only with a specific router provided from the mobile company. It was easy to bypass this restrcition - I cloned the MAC address. Now I am in Greece - here you can buy a sim card from the local mobile company and activate a cheap package for unlimited intertnet data (8.2 euro per week - max 2 activations per month). Everything worked great for 3 days. It looks like that that the provider has a way to detect if the sim card is installed in a mobile phone or a router.
My question is - Do someone here knows a way to bypass this restriction. I don’t want to use my phone as a hotspot - we have way to many devices that need access to the internet.
Any chance your Greek operator is Cosmote and you have Cosmote Mobile Security enabled? I had terrible problems with this service enabled, introducing packet loss and TCP retransmissions, getting slower as time passed since router reboot. It was also impossible to disable this service by SMS, I had to log in to customer management web interface.
Yes, I use Cosmote. When I insert the SIM in my phone the internet is working withount an issue. Once I put it in the router I can see it connecting but there is no internet. I hope I get to Greece soon to test if the TTL change will help.
What if you don’t share the Internet and test from the router itself? Can the router access the Internet? Does it even have IP address and default gateway installed? You’ve mentioned it worked for 3 days and then stopped working. Does rebooting the router grant you another 3 days of working?
I tested, and there was no ping. I was able to resolve addresses but without any outbound traffic. Rebooting did nothing. I also changed my IMEI (long story), but nothing changed. It is possible that I was banned in some way. I will see, hopefully, soon.
As I understand from OP, you are trying to connect with hAP ax lite LTE6 using SIM purchased in Greece and SIM is locked to specific device provided by MO. Is it even possible to change IMEI of LTE modem in hAP ax lite LTE6 device? Or I understood something wrong here?
Anyway, it is possible that MO detected mismatch of some device identifiers (IMEI, IMSI, UICC/USIM) and it’s blocking traffic.
The SIM is not locked to a specific device; I think it is locked from sharing (used as a hotspot) internet. If I place it in my phone, the internet works fine—it is when I place it in the router that the internet does not work. From the settings, I can see the operator and signal strength, but there is no inbound traffic.
I am a total noob with Mikrotik and configuring more advanced network devices - at home, I am with Unify, and at work, we use Meraki, and by use, I say it just works, and I do a port forward from time to time.
Ok, things that confused me is changing IMEI and MAC mentioned in above posts… If there is no locking in place from MO, then revert all changes related to LTE connectivity to default and try to apply just TTL hack, also check #4 mentioned by @TuxPowered which is related to that specific MO.
I hope you’re able to get your internet working in Greece soon! I’m actually planning a trip there later this year and was worried about having the same issues. Let me know if changing the TTL works for you. I may have to try that as well if I run into any blocking from Cosmote. I’m also new to traveling in Greece, so I booked a guide from https://gowithguide.com/ - it seems like a good way to get recommendations for SIM cards and local tips without a lot of hassle.
I changed the IMEI so that the SIM card I use in Bulgaria works - the MO locked it to the Huawei 4G router they provided. I This change was made before I faced the issue in Greece.
Got it. So it is possible to change IMEI on MT device, interesting… No idea why Greece MO is blocking then, unless is blocked by IMEI before TTL change and now changing TTL doesn’t have effect.
For LTE to work with Cosmote you have to disable “Use Network APN” and manually enter “Internet”. I also set Ip Type to IPv4, but I’m not sure it’s necessary.
Thank you for the help and great information. I have an update: This is my third day in Greece, and the internet is working. I hope this stays that way till the end of my stay.
I have implemented both changes - the route configuration for the TTL and the manual APN config.
The important part of making Mikrotik LTE device run in Cosmote network is the capital “I” in the APN “Internet”.
It fails with APN “internet”, and as already mentioned, fails with “Use network APN”
The TTL magic mentioned above is not needed as COSMOTE does not abuse TTL the way other ISP do.
What made it hard to debug:
A Bulgarian SIM card (A1.bg or vivacom.bg) with roaming enabled works great in a Mikrotik router in Greece.
Both Cosmote and Vodafone cards work in whatever phone or tablet, incl. hotspot for another devices.
Both Cosmote and Vodafone cards fail in Mikrotik in similar manner - the LTE interface registers in the network, shows good signal, gets IP and does not return any traffic.
Modern mobile devices silently accept the configurationn messages from the provider.
Bulgarian mobile operators (all 3 of them) accept whatever you write in the APN field and you get internet access. This may make one think that this setting is of no importance.
I’ve run into similar issues while traveling and trying to find reliable internet access in different countries. Sometimes, mobile providers have restrictions that make it tricky to use SIM cards in routers, even if they work fine in phones. When I was in the UAE, I needed a simple way to keep my mobile balance topped up without relying on physical stores, especially since I move around a lot.
For that, I found using the du recharge platform to be really convenient. It saves time, especially when needing quick mobile top-ups for data and calls without finding a recharge shop.
