I use a firewall (OPNsense) and want to configure a failover WWAN (cellular).
For this I would like to operate a Mikrotik cellular modem. It is important to me that the cellular modem supports IP passthrough so that the firewall receives the public IP address of my provider (public IP is already activated).
My problem is that I am between two radio stations. The first one is a little closer to me (850m), but is facing the wrong direction. The second one is further away (1400m), but sends in my direction. I only want to use the second station because the LTE-speed here is five times faster than first one.
I’m thinking about buying the LHGG LTE6, but I don’t know if that is overkill for my distance/use case.
Which outdoor product would you recommend to me?
I got bad experience using low LTE class devices thinking that they already provide the throughput they need. In my case it was WAP with R11e-LTE at which provides LTE Category 4. In theory the provided bandwidth of 150Mb/s would be just fine for my use case. But the bandwidth of 150Mb/s is the maximum this device can do if it’s given 100% of time slots from the BTS! Which it is never given because there are other mobile devices connected. In my very unlucky case it means <0.5Mb/s in peak times. At the same time from the same BTS an older iPhone with 2x2 MIMO and Category 18 modem with 4 channel aggregation can do 5-10Mb/s.
As for antenna type, the LHGG is a directional antenna. I don’t think you need it at such distances.
Maybe something like Mikrotik Chateau LTE 18 would be a better choice for your case. If you really need the cell lock, there are AT commands for that, however depending on particular modem they might be restored across reboots. You can also control bands, this is a permanent Mikrotik setting, maybe the stations around your place operate on different channels and you could disable the ones served from the unwanted station.
If you want a failover WAN solution in front of your opnsense box, if I was you I would aim at purchasing a gateway device, not a full fledged multi-port router with WiFi such as the chateau LTE18 or Chateau 5G.
Recently I was searching for a LTE-based solution because of connection issues I was randomly encountering when trying to connect to my employer’s citrix servers with my ISP. I was disappointed that Mikrotik is not selling 4G/5G LTE gateways with high LTE class and low power consumption. I searched then for another solution and found Teltonika’s products.
Teltonika is a lituanian company specializing in (industrial) IoT devices, and they have an interesting range of LTE gateways. For instance they have the TRB500 device: it’s a 5G/4G LTE class 20 gateway, 4x4 MIMO, in a small rugged case (their devices are often installed in trucks or in server racks for instance), with low power consumption (3W idle, 6W max) with an OpenWRT-based OS dedicated to this task of being an LTE gateway. The only shortcomming I found is that there is no PoE capability (but I was not needing it anyway). Compared to Mikrotik’s Chateau 5G, the max power consumption is 4 times lower, the case is smaller and where I live it costs ~25% less than the Chateau 5G. Here is a link to the product: https://teltonika-networks.com/products/gateways/trb500
That being said I did NOT buy such a gateway at all as my ISP and employer’s networking colleagues found a bug which was explaining my Citrix issues, they fixed it and my disconnection issues were gone. So I cannot tell you if I’m satisfied abouit this gateway, I however can tell you that, from what I read, their products are interesting, their documentation is great (people should go read it, watch their videos), that customers praise their support, that configuring theses devices seems straightforward, and that they are well recognized in their area of expertise. If I had to buy a LTE gateway tomorrow to deploy a LTE-based WAN failover, I would certainly give a look at their products.
BTW @Mikrotik, if you’re reading this, why are you not providing a Chateau 5G-like device in a gateway format ?