Is MikroTik good for home use?

RouterOS Beginner Basics
21

Actually IMSI is property of SIM … IMEI is property of terminal device (i.e. modem R11e-LTE6).
3 of most significant digits of IMSI defines country (234 is United Kingdom) and next two digits defines operator within that country (30 in UK means T-Mobile; so does 31 and 32). The rest is SIM’s serial number.
6 of most significant digits of IMEI defines TAC (Type Alocation Code) which defines combination of producer / device model. 356662 is for Mikrotik R11E-LTE6 device. Next two digits is kind of revision / SW version and can change with software upgrades. The rest of IMEI is serial number.

Since modem sees IMSI, this means it somehow cummunicates with SIM. But that doesn’t mean that SIM is flawless or that SIM is correctly provisioned in MNOs data bases. So it really depends on what exactly “suppliers saw some errors with the SIM” actually means …

22

Thank you for that excellent overview of a technology I never thought I would need to learn about!

Having set logging for LTE, the modem kindly produced this message (among many others) this morning:
lte1: rcvd +CME ERROR: SIM not inserted

I think it is time to try the replacement SIM.

I note that the interface has been set up to select only Band 3 whereas local towers have bands 3 and 20. Is it useful to select 20 too?

I am very grateful for the help. When I saw the volume and depth of contributions on this forum I knew that MikroTik products were a few steps above what I have dealt with at home in the past. I still have a collection of routers from Sky, PlusNet, BT etc.

23

For the SIM card not inserted error you could try to put a layer or two of scotch tape on the back of the SIM card in order to make it a little thicker. If you make the tape longer than the SIM it’ll make a nice tag for you to pull on in order to take the SIM out next time. That error seems to come up frequently. I had it with an LTaP LTE6 device and the tape fixed it.


Assuming your LTE modem will do carrier aggregation you will want to select 20 as well. I use the same bands in my area and have 3,20 checked. If you select only one band it will only use that band. Selecting none at all is the same as “auto” if I recall right.

24

But shouldn’t it use CA automatically (Carrier Aggregation) ?
LTE device located in France is supposed to be using 7 and 3. But whenever I try to force it, it breaks the connection.
Only when leaving stuff at auto, I see under load B3 being added as CA next to primary B7 (which still results in a measly 10/4, sometime 20/12 when I’m lucky but more then good enough for what I need there).

25

I assumed that each band carried multiple channels and they were aggregated by some technical magic.

I had a really annoying problem last night which I eventually worked out was due to my flitting back and forth using ethernet cable to talk with EE broadband router (which I think is an old version of the BT homehub) and WiFi to talk with the MikroTik router. When I switched back to Ethernet the DNS just failed dismally. I had hard-coded the ip details in Win10 and just used the router address as a DNS server.

Here is a clue to the problem:

Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TP-Link Wireless N PCI Express Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : D0-37-45-08-7E-77
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::e9ce:41d0:28fc:9e08%17(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.208(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 24 June 2022 22:20:54
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 01 July 2022 22:20:54
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 282081093
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-26-E1-68-77-04-D9-F5-CB-32-CB
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fe80::9e97:26ff:fe8f:e97c%17
                                       192.168.88.2
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

The primary DNS is an IPv6 address and the secondary is that of the new router - even though I had specific automatic in the Win10 GUI.

As the EE router does not support IPv6 it could not perform the look ups. Bouncing the PC did not help.

I got around it by inserting an invalid IPv6 address for the DNS server so it switched back to a standard global server:

Ethernet adapter Ethernet:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 04-D9-F5-CB-32-CB
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::6cfa:1465:555d:88ae%11(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.17(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 201644533
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-26-E1-68-77-04-D9-F5-CB-32-CB
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : ::1
                                       1.1.1.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

I put the details here in the unlikely event that someone else falls foul of it!

I would like to change the 88 subnet to zero so I can merge the new devices with the current ones. As some are static for Raspberry Pi’s, cameras and the like I do not want to attempt to alter the lot to change subnet masks. From what I can see it should be a matter of tweaking the addresses from the app or web interface and changing the DHCP details.

26

It does if you don’t select any bands manually, just as you have observed. The modem should lock on to wherever bands it sees based on strength/quality of signal. The problem I’ve had is that it doesn’t always mean I get the best service. Seems you have the same issue. There may be multiple emitters around you that are using band 3 and 7 it’s possible that the modem isn’t locking on to the right one. There’s a way you can force a lock. SiB has a very comprehensive LTE write up. In my case, if I leave the setting at auto my modem will frequently lock on B1 and B20. This is a fast connection but is of mediocre quality. B3 and B20 gives me a very good quality connection with a bit less throughput. But even then I still get >100mbps/20 or 25mbps. Can’t complain.

27

Sorry if I have missed an obvious topic or forum but is there any advice around for changing the modem’s and router’s addresses so I can merge the devices in my existing network?

I have created quite a detailed plan to do so but I would like someone to check out if I have missed something.

28

Thank you for the advice! The replacement card is working a treat but what a git of a job up a tall ladder and ham-fisted fingers! I shall keep the lte logging going and if the sim disappears I shall try that excellent scotch tape engineering mod! I selected band 20 too. I will attempt to work out which one it is actually using.

29

I came down this morning to a dead internet due to not running LTE.

Log has many of these errors:

lte1: sent AT+ZGDCONT=5,"IP","everywhere ",0
lte1: rcvd +CME ERROR: Invalid Param

and

lte1: *CME ERROR: Missing SN

Any ideas on those?

Ah - it seems that EE “are aware of a technical problem with this site”. I will try again when they fix whatever it is on their side.