The LTE interface, automatic support for Direct-IP without NAT?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Sorry for the cross-posting in http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/the-lte-interface-automatic-support-for-direct-ip-without-nat/105989/1 but I wasn’t sure if this question belonged to the hardware forum or not. Anyhow, here is the question again:

Regarding the 4G LTE mPCIe cards found in “http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Supported_Hardware#4G_LTE_cards_and_modems”

If you install a 4G card using the LTE interface, does it imply you have automatic support for Direct-IP or are those things totally unrelated?

Regarding cards with possible built-in NAT (didn’t know it existed until I read about it in the forum):

  • Is it common that 4G cards utilizes some kind of built in NAT?
  • will Direct-IP bypass any possible built-in NAT-function in the card?
  • are there any particular 4G cards you should avoid if you don’t want to have built in NAT?
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I have no experience with mpcie cards, the only lte modem i did test is a very common one, the Huawey E3372 USB.

Regardless what i did, i was not able to disable the internal NAT of the modem.

There are two firmwares for this modem. One with NAT, and the other without NAT. But the one without NAT does not work with Router OS 6.

All this is very confusing and it’s difficult to find reliable informations.

So it would be definitely useful to have one more column in https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Supported_Hardware#4G_LTE_cards_and_modems to indicate NAT or Bridge support or both.

Another problem i did find, is the lack of support for modem configuration and status report from Router OS. So the only way to configure the modem was through it’s web interface.

Last problem, there is almost all the time a provider NAT for 4G. So if you need a public IP address, you’ll need to pay for an option at the provider. This is not always available. Hopefully this will change with IPv6.