So great small travel router is here:

https://youtu.be/D-EQnwwB1ps

Now we wait until is available

Glad I didn't rush to bux ax lite, i will wait for LTE version.

I see that MSRP is 99.99 USD on Mikrotik's site. Not a bad price.

Damn ... that looks like a pretty sweet road warrior device !!

Just don't take it to North America, you'd be real disappointed:

LTE FDD bands 1 (2100MHz) / 3 (1800MHz) / 5 (850MHz) / 7 (2600MHz) / 8 (900 MHz) / 20 (800MHz) / 28 (700MHz)

Maybe there will be US version

So great small travel router is here:

https://youtu.be/D-EQnwwB1ps

Now we wait until is available

Aagghh! This form factor, it's very disappointing. Mikrotik had an almost perfect, very small-very efficient form factor with the Hap Lite/Hap Ac lite and now with this flapper base design they look like Chinese cheapo tplink junk who nobody in his right mind would deploy in a real world scenario for fear of becoming a laughing stock.

Truly dissapointing. Another CAT6 without Band 4. More of the same.

We need something that works with tons of bands, something "universal".

hAP itself sounds good, but LTE... Not really. It's not important to me if I need pay handreds and handreds of dollars for an really complete LTE device.

R11e-LTE-US was discontinued, so less bands now are supported. This was a step back.

I'm agree with @Amm0.

Regards.

My perfect travel router. Can't wait to buy one. Cheaper than using a phone with hotspot.

I will replace my wAP LTE with this router once it became available. It's smaller, more eth. ports, power by USB.

It's pain in the ass when you have to carry router and switch with you... This is ideal for camping, I can power it with my power bank and solar panels.

Looks like a perfect travel router for my eurotrip, performance comparable to my old Hap ac.
I'm replacing my Map lite with this. Ordered one, getting it in 3 weeks.

Would be a really nice device with POE support. Sad it does not have that...

Regarding USB-C power... I think this is missing support for PD (power delivery) protocol. So no idea if a power bank or other USB-C power source would work.

Don't think that would be a problem, i have couple of power banks and all of them have 5V 2.4A output as well as 5V 1A output.

PoE on this kind of device for what ?

Ah, it needs just 5V... Well, could work then. If anybody tries different power sources... Let us know!

I use POE a lot, as I have a lot of POE networks around. Very handy to have a device that is happy with just a single cable. I need an extra power source just very seldom.

I agree, I use poe on all my devices but this one, this is meant to be portable i presume and more oriented to normal user so no need for PoE

But it is also a perfect fit for administrator's travel toy. So POE definitely missing here for the use case.

Let's hope we will see similar devices in future.

So POE definitely missing here for the use case.

If you ask me, it's actually USB data that's missing on the hAP ax lite... Since it be slick if the hAP appear as ethernet device to a laptop (and draw power from laptop at same time) – that be one cable then to internet, an ethernet switch, and "basic" Wi-Fi. AFAIK that's not possible. Maybe in the North American version

It's an ARM-verson of the mAP I'm waiting for— hopefully with same PoE IN+OUT... I have a few of the current ones (including one in my backpack) – the PoE is super handy and hope they don't lose that on future ones....

Dunno. But most decent LTE hotspot already mount as ethernet if you plug them into a laptop/etc. So don't think it hard...

And maybe it works – I don't have one – I just don't see USB data on the Block Diagram...

The use case is few "LTE hotspots" have ethernet ports (and all the VPN/routing/etc of RouterOS). While being able to use any USB-C than need a specific 5.5/2.1 DC one is handy ... you'd still likely need a power adapter for the hAPax-Lite anyway ... since something else may need to charge, and then you have no power on the hAP...

Good luck, I gave up waiting for a new Map.

Lucky you,

My distributor doesn't have them yet in stock... Heck I must wait for RB5009 PoE until september...

Damn, thats fast
I'll probably get mine in september.

Well, now @holvoetn will be guinea pig

Getic still has them in stock. Already waiting for mine to see comparrison against B535.

Woohooo!
want to see how the little fella performs, watching intently.

Got it !
Lots of work to do so probably will not be able to play with it today.

I'm not jealous at all...

This would be great replacement for wAP LTE that I use now. It's pain in the ass to use 5 port switch and have separate power supply for that.

Lot of time there is no room for all that inside control panels...

Do you have by any chance wAP LTE to compare with ?

Ps that line on the graph is when I switched screens to take the screenshot

NO! It looks like it's not reading SINR – that seems like a bug. Now it could be either Android app not reading/charting, OR RouterOS isn't reading it from the modem. Might want to check with winbox/cli to see if it's reading SINR from modem there... But it should be showing the SINR.

will be nice to see photos of this device disassembled

Ax lite lte powered by 10.000mAh power bank

@holvoetn thanks for your test, very interesting...

It would be great to place inline usb monitor, so you have actual readout of current, voltage and power used.

Did you leave some kind of devices connected to it ? Or you just set it to send SMS ?

Checked on PC/Winbox, no SINR either.
[...]
So probably a bug for this type of modem (FG621-EA, same as in Chateau AX LTE). Or this reading is irrelevant ?

Well, if your in hotel room etc...it generally obvious the window be better placement than say the bathroom that presumably have lower signal... Does the knowing amount of dB loss matter there? And not like you can install new antennas etc... So irrelevancy is kinda relative.

@normis suggests in another thread about signals,

I have found that looking at SINR usually gives the best indication of overall situation. 4 is quite low, but workable. Try to get it higher

My opinion is that all signal values tell some story. I view it as RSRP is the beginning and the CQI is the end of story (& that's actually the order Mikrotik uses in winbox). SINR include noise and interference, so that part of the story it tells. But the CQI incorporates SINR data into a number from 0-15, with 15 being best – so that one is pretty easy to get some quick/general sense of the current speeds.

Its probably consuming 2W sitting there not doing anything, could be powered for 18 hours, could be less, we wont know without USB tester.

Also installed zerotier in the mean time.
Changed the script to output LTE data every 10 minutes that text is being send (RSRP / RSRQ / RSSI / SINR (which is not there yet)).
7h33 uptime, powerbank still shows 2 leds.

Since you're already installing extra-packages, you can also add the dude package. And the dude can monitor the router it's running on, so with few added probes you'd have some nice charts for stuff like cellular and voltage*. The dude is quite handy for data recording IMO... And Dude is so old, I'd imagine the modern ARM in the hAPaxLite won't notice much & your'd be monitoring one device (itself, locally).

* voltage IN (note: NOT watts used, while lower voltage means battery low, with lithium you won't like notice until pretty close to dead)

I thought you couldnt run DUDE cause of tiny storage space and no USB port.

Well, I was curious if the Dude fit actually... It should however, it has 128MB.

And data for one router isn't very big, and even less if polling was reduce. Now, I suppose a RAMdisk could be used for the dude database file, and script could backup it up to flash only periodically — if one was overly worried about flash writes.

But yeah if voltage is not in /system/health, it's not going to be in dude...

Chateau LTE6 got the same modem, do you know if they display SINR?

Anyhow, I launched a sup-ticket, will see what they answer.

Good plan. AFAIK, there is a lot of timing involved in. The CQI and SINR have to do a lot more math on the modem – so are typically reported less frequently & I think RouterOS gives up waiting for data, so remove the value in the CLI/app/etc. e.g. it's probably there, but RouterOS gives up waiting...

And hAPaxLiteLTE uses a Fibocom modem, not Quectels in other models, so even more likely timing/something is different...

Any idea if the modem is soldered? I’ve read mixed reports.

I think it's soldered. You can find one disasembly of Hap Ax lite on YT and there you will see, that there is a space for soldered modem. It probably can be replaced if you are realy good at soldering, but i realy don't see a reason.

You can find one disasembly of Hap Ax lite on YT and there you will see, that there is a space for soldered modem.

You can go to fcc.id/TV7L41GXD and look at Internal Photos.

13h30 and still 1 led on powerbank.

Not bad results at all... Let's assume that you have 25% battery left, that's about 7500 mAh consumed for over half a day, okay there was no much load on it but still not so bad.

I couldn't resist... I bought one...

But couldn't find oid for interface uptime ?

I don't think there is one for interface uptime, at least not for LTE or generic interfaces. The SNMP data for LTE is missing some other stuff that be useful (e.g. CQI, LTE band used/EARFCN) nor an CA data), but does have the main signal ones.

On The Dude, I'd make sure you track the interface speeds too** – may helpful to correlate with LTE signal stuff.

** To do this... in the Dude Map, create a static item call "LTE Network", then add a "Link" via the (+) in map, and "draw" a connection from hAPax device to the static "LTE Network"... Dude will then prompt for what interface, pick LTE interface & start it track the speeds to LTE. If you get fancy, you can use "Graphs" to add both these speed and various LTE data to see them overlayed – you'll like see how modem switch things (and signal changes) with the usage.

Already figured that one out as well using a "dummy device" to link to

That one is far from obvious... I think the auto-scan stuff will add a "network", but it does a lousy job, so disabling that is also a good idea & add the device(s) "by hand" to map ...
But tracking the usage and signals, it does a great job of that.

It's a shame there isn't voltage in /system/health – with a battery pack, that's kinda useful...

Another note: The Dude map is in webfig, so you can at least see the status without the client... So if setup either remotely or on hAPax, once Dude is setup, viewing the data doesn't need Windows/Dude client...

It's a shame there isn't voltage in /system/health – with a battery pack, that's kinda useful...

But in case of power bank that wouldn't be useful anyway because power bank outputs stable 5V all the time and i presume that hap ax lite accept only 5V input so maybe that's the reason there is no voltage monitor ?

It's a shame there isn't voltage in /system/health – with a battery pack, that's kinda useful...

But in case of power bank that wouldn't be useful anyway because power bank outputs stable 5V all the time [...]

Yup, fair enough... Sure your right...the battery pack or router would disconnect USB before you'd see any voltage drop.

So probably a bug for this type of modem (FG621-EA, same as in Chateau AX LTE). Or this reading is irrelevant ?
I'll ask support already about it (SUP-124867).

Confirmed by support it is missing for now for this type of modem.
Will be added later.

Yeah I had enough faith in Android that it does just add extra lines in a screenshot

You might want to also ask about CQI (if that's not being shown...)

I will try to measure current consumption once i recieve my unit, i can get my hands on usb power tester.

Very nice, USB testers are not very accurate but should give you a general idea.
And good to know that SINR will be fixed.

I think this one was about 60 euros, it have fancy OLED, can emulate various protocols etc. And it's quite accurate so should be good enough for this test.

Oh wow, people usually buy one for 2 euros, those can be 5-30% inaccurate. You got one of those state of the art ones.
Got a call from my distributor, their warehouse just got a batch of haps and they're sending one to me.

Yea, those testers that costs 2 euros, they are toys not testers

Got it. I'll play with it later.

My is on it's way... Next Tuesday is expected delivery date.

Connected it to my old powerbank, it just works. Set two APNs and pinged over IP and IPv6 simultaneously, didnt expect that to work. Plugged into my router and turned on LTE passthrough. Played a game, had stable connection over LTE while people playing on dsl and wifi lagged.
I was using old 3G phone as a modem but its battery got swollen, this is a great replacement. Wanted LTE USB modem for a long time but market is filled with garbage, my MNO even stopped selling them. USB modems are overpriced, overheat, slow, include wifi that cant be turned off, dont list protocol used in specs and can fry your router's USB, I prefer HAP ax lite lte6 for the same money.

Last time i used USB modem was some 10 years ago

Never liked them... Sticking out of the laptop, you can't plug something else because it's so big it covers 2 usb ports...

Good to see you are satisfied, i wait for my router to arrive...

Never understood those "travel routers" without modems. Plug slow USB modem into USB port and pray it doesnt bump on something and snaps? No thanks.
Also it looks like you cant change IMEI on this one.

Also it looks like you cant change IMEI on this one.

Code: Select all

[admin@MikroTik] > /interface lte at-chat lte1 input="AT*PROD\?"
  output: +CME ERROR: Operation not supported

That only works on the original R11e-LTE AFAIK. The hAPaxLite has Fibocom modem, so even if allowed... likely be a different command.
But I doubt it supports changing IMEI — the carriers don't like it & some certification rules forbid it, so most modems don't support changing it.

Why would you ?

Basically it's like cloning the MAC-address on a cable modem.

I don't know how popular, but some carrier look if the device's modem's serial# (the IMEI) matches the SIM card# (the ICCID) to allow network access.
But I think it was more common in 3G networks.

... but some carrier look if the device's modem's serial# (the IMEI) matches the SIM card# (the ICCID) to allow network access.

No, it's another reason: since 3G there isn't a central device certification authority and MNOs have to perform their own interoperability tests (and some device vendors even require that before enabling their devices to work with particular networks and/or features, such as VoLTE, Appke was pretty notorious about that with LTE networks roll-out). The positive thinking says it's for the better for users because if device is allowed to work in network, operator knows that it'll be relatively trouble-free. The negative thinking is that operators use it to force users to use whatever crap they're selling.
Only rarely operators link certain subscription plan to certain terminal types (e.g. data-only plans tied to data-only terminals) and they may update their terminal type database only with terminals which they tested and officially support. In this case they indeed use both IMEI and ICCID to do the check.

So, UPS decided to suprise me with my device today

One question for @mkx, my operator on 70GB data plan for private customers have speed limit 10/10, and my SIM card is under business plan and they said to me that i don't have speed limit but i'm not so sure because i get 9-11 mbps DL and 8-15 mbps UL speeds...

So my question is, based on data from picture, is this some kind of speed limit or is this connection limitation ?

Technically, with properly working CA between two 20MHz cells, maximum throughput should be between 300Mbps and 400Mbps in DL and with signal level and quality shown in screenshot it should be around 200Mbps ... I don't know if CA works for UL as well (depends on LTE modem category and network support), but with single carrier it should exceed 50Mbps in perfect radio conditions (or around 25-30Mbps with signal strength from your screenshot).

When it comes to real-life performance: remember that LTE cell capacity is shared between many users, seeing throughput around one tenth of maximum is pretty normal these days. Usually the load in mobile networks is lowest in small hours (e.g. between 3am and 6am) and you may want to test then to see how your device performs in and unloaded network. Also: usual ratio between DL and UL for normal users is more than 10:1 (can be even 30:1) ... so it's not unusual to see UL relatively (or even absolutely) better than DL (you're competing for scarce resources in DL while UL is less loaded by other users and you can get higher share of maximum).
My experience so far with bandwidth limiters is that they shape traffic pretty sharply (possibly after a few seconds of unshaped period of time) and then throughput doesn't vary much (if at all) ... if, of course, the rest of network is not bottleneck.

Usually operators don't play with QoS parameters to differentiate private and business customers, so as business customer you don't get better service in the peak traffic hours. Only if bottlenecks allow (usually that's cell capacity), you as business customer will get better throughput (as you're not shaped).

Thank you for explanation, so I did a couple more speedtests and I got this results:


So my operator didn't limit my speed after all... I had previous SIM card on private plan with 70GB data so I always get 9/9 Mbps... And that is annoying because larger data plans don't have speed limit (250 and 500GB)

Anyway, I'm really happy with lite LTE for now, I'm getting better speeds compared to wAP LTE.

Your phone uses 4 antennas (not just 2 as in the hApaxLite) and more LTE bands...

And smartphone is likely 10+ "versions" of LTE newer than the hAPaxLite (e.g. category 8 modem vs category 18+ in a modern smartphone).

My first real use will use will be for the upcoming trip to Slovenia in October.

Until then, little bit of playing with it, tomorrow I will connect it to USB tester to see power draw of this little router.

@holvoetn, so your wife lets you test routers at vacation ?

My just said only wires I wanna see in our suitcase are phone and laptop chargers

So very active vacation

One thing that i like is sim card tray, on wap lte it's a pita to install sim card...

... Orange fiber.

What did you expect from coloured fiber? It should be transparent

So I played a little bit with router and I got following results:

IDLE (LTE connection up, wireless enabled but no clients, no wired devices)

Input voltage: 5.08V
Current draw: 0.478A
Power draw: 2,428W

WIRED IDLE (LTE connection up, wireless enabled but no clients, 1 wired device but no or very little traffic)

Input voltage: 5.10V
Current draw: 0.588A
Power draw: 2,998W

WIRED YOUTUBE (LTE connection up, wireless enabled but no clients, 1 wired device running 1080p video)

Input voltage: 5.09V
Current draw: 0.745A <- This value is average value (10 data points were taken) because when I start to play video current go from 0.665A to 0.812A
Power draw: 3,792W

WIRED AND WIRELESS YOUTUBE (LTE connection up, wireless enabled with 1 client running 1440p video, 1 wired device running 1080p video)

Input voltage: 5.07V
Current draw: 0.853A<- This value is average value (10 data points were taken) because when I start to play video current go from 0.684A up to 1.089A
Power draw: 4,324W

WIRELESS SPEEDTEST (LTE connection up, wireless enabled with 1 client running speedtest, 1 wired device at idle)

Input voltage: 5.06V
Current draw: 1.032A<- This value is average value (10 data points were taken), when speed test begin I can see current goes from 0.945A min to peak of 1.264A max.
Power draw: 5,221W

ROUTER SHUTDOWN (Router is turned off by shutdown command in CLI)

Input voltage: 5.08V
Current draw: 0.463A
Power draw: 2,352W

Not bad at all

EDIT: Not bad at all expect power draw when turned off...

nice data, thank you for sharing

EDIT: Not bad at all expect power draw when turned off...

I'd imagine the modem likely doesn't turn off, when the kernel exits from the shutdown.

But this is good to know... If for some reason you leave router connected to power bank it is possible that router would drain powerbank...

But this is good to know... If for some reason you leave router connected to power bank it is possible that router would drain powerbank...

The modem shutdown too would actually make more sense . I just know it doesn't do that with modem on other platforms. Seems like a reasonable request (or bug depending on POV).

But you bring up another "test case". Does "/system/routerboard/usb/power-reset" work on the hAPaxLite? That kills power to USB modems on other platforms.

I totally agree with you, shutdown should be just that, shutdown...

Router after shutdown draw almost the same current when it's idle... I was surprised by this, i expected some small current to be drawn but this is a lot, not a problem when you are on wall adapter but could be a problem when you are on power bank

I tested command you gave and what happen is LTE disconnects and lte1 interface disappear for about 40-45 seconds from interface menu.

EDIT: Small test with BTH, phone connected to the router via BTH, when running speed test I get about 15-20 Mbps DL/UL (my router position is not ideal) but I noticed that CPU usage goes as high as 52% and average load is about 30-35% so it seems that router is struggling a little bit when VPN is used.

IDLE (LTE connection up, wireless enabled but no clients, no wired devices)

Input voltage: 5.08V
Current draw: 0.478A
Power draw: 2,428W

Just connected my wAP ac LTE with R11e-LTE (CAT4) to my usb meter, it is connected to a usb-c power bank via PD adapter set to 16V.

Input voltage: 16.33V
Current draw: 0.25A - 0.26A
Power draw: 4.1W - 4.2W

I should consider an "upgrade"...

Only thing I still do not like: It has no POE capabilities.

I tested command you gave and what happen is LTE disconnects and lte1 interface disappear for about 40-45 seconds from interface menu.

That's good news, it means the power can be cut to modem on it – that be step one to be able to do it via a shutdown . Maybe you should file a feature request

Be curious on the power usage was when the modem was powered off by that command. e.g. use a "power-cycle duration=1d" (1 day) then /system/shutdown & see what power looks like on your USB power meter...

Power drain on wAP ac LTE is at 4W after shutdown.

Only thing I still do not like: It has no POE capabilities.

100% agree. I'm hoping (absolutely not expecting) the US/NA* version have PoE IN myself.

I don't get why you'd want to deal with USB cable length limits. And since USB is just carrying power, USB become even less useful. PoE be way more flexible.

* or better still, similar lower category modem, just with global band support (e.g. works in Europe and US)

I tested command you gave and what happen is LTE disconnects and lte1 interface disappear for about 40-45 seconds from interface menu.

That's good news, it means the power can be cut to modem on it – that be step one to be able to do it via a shutdown . Maybe you should file a feature request

Feature request, Mikrotik please make that shutdown command actually shuts down router

I can't use power-cycle duration command, only power-reset duration, and even then, max is 30 seconds.

I see you get CA and I'm jealous.
Band 7 is too far to connect, 3 and 8 wont let me CA.

And what speeds do you get ?

Speeds are all over the place. Same story with my phone. Phone is faster but its not fair comparing LTE18 to LTE6.

Today I had field test with the router, 2 wired devices, one wireless device, powered by USB3 port on my laptop.

I was afraid that the router could maybe overload USB port but there was no problem. Also wifi range is pretty good on this little guy.

Damn all that stuff wont fit in a fanny pack.

Nice to know I can power it with a laptop. That means you can power it with USB inside airplanes, trams and buses.

Well I can't recommend it as normal USB3 (non-PD) port can only supply about 900 mA of current per USB specification so in case there is some heavy load on the router it will most certainly overload USB port.

But I had light load, no big data transfers, VPN's enabled or anything like that.

I'm safe, mine consumes less than 5W so far.

Got my łittle baby yesterday. Decent lte6 speed and decent 2.4GHz wifi speed (i have seen 350 Mbps download through wifi).
I made ether1 --> wan port. i would like to connect it to a lan port in a hotel and access internet through my trusted router.
LTE6 modem very good with decent stability and speed.

Tried to combine ether1 and lte1 interface into a load balancing scenario with PerConnectionClassifier but no luck because i cannot find out the gateway of my LTE ISP and from hotel to hotel the gateway of ether1 is also changing..I tried to use %ether1 and %lte1instead of ips when creating the static default routes but it didnt work for me.
That would be an interesting feature for a travel router..

I'm curious, everyone, what did you set mode button and user led to?
Time to steal your ideas.

I don't have one. But one idea is for mode button is to restart the LTE interface...
either by disable/enabling interface in /system/routerboard/mode-button, using "/interface/lte { disable [find]; :delay 5s; enable [find] }"
or more bluntly "/system/routerboard/usb/power-reset"

I'm curious, everyone, what did you set mode button and user led to?
Time to steal your ideas.

Mode button nothing yet, and user led to show LTE interface activity.

I'm curious, everyone, what did you set mode button

https://git.eworm.de/cgit/routeros-scri ... -button.md

and user led to?

https://git.eworm.de/cgit/routeros-scri ... to-leds.md
(Device connects to a vpn, and ospf is inside this vpn. So ospf is the best indication for full connectivity here.)

Time to steal your ideas.

Please do!

Can confirm that SINR is present on 7.12beta3

Have been using mine for about a week and like it a lot.

Setup of queues (quality of service) has been a lifesaver for connection reliability. Burst limits allowed setting conservative up/download limits on the LTE interface to leave a margin for speed fluctuations.

I would love the option to run Adguard on the router.

A consumer userbase would perhaps want to have the following features:

• an automatic QOS function that optimizes and adjusts traffic flow depending on current state of traffic flow (congestion) of the LTE modem

• more functions on the quick set screen. Such as: fixed client IP reservations, port forwarding, guest network, a couple of status displays

I could see myself purchasing the 5G version in a year or two from now (:

Queues have been useless to me cause I dont know lte bandwidth.
Maybe one day I'll read that 50 page thread on queues without falling asleep.

Queues have been useless to me cause I dont know lte bandwidth.
Maybe one day I'll read that 50 page thread on queues without falling asleep.

LOL, yeah at least 50 pages... Problem is there isn't perfect solution to queues – because LTE is pretty variable (often related to time-of-day) as you note. The hAPaxLiteLte6 uses 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi... so that acts as a bit of "queue" already assuming the 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi is using a 20Mhz channel however... A larger 40 or 80Mhz channel is likely to cause more problem since you'll likely get Wi-Fi re-transmission, and 80Mhz (and likely 40Mhz) Wi-Fi is actually faster than LTE speeds.

It's the upload where some queue be beneficial, since it's "maximum max" is 50Mbs for a CAT-6 LTE modem. Be curious what @netbuilder used as his queue, but a /queue/tree on lte1 to limit to at 50Mb/s (or lower/"closer" to what you see) may be of some benefit.

I have a question here. Does anyone know what QuickSet "profiles" are support on it (e.g. in drop-down list in the top left corner of QuickSet dialog)?

Installed three ax lite lte on new sites, works like a charm, 4 port switch on router is a life saver, I used Meanwell DDR-15G-5 DC/DC converter to bring 24V down to 5V.

In my case I measured the available up- and download speeds at different times of the day.
As @Amm0 wrote congestion on the upload can be particularly critical. I therefore limited max upload to about 40% of what was available during the worst time of the day and set a burst limit at 80%. Download is a bit less sensitive to maxing out the connection.

I now have:
Download: Max Limit 25M, Burst Limit 45M, Burst Threshold 18M, Burst Time 10
Upload: Max Limit 4M, Burst Limit 8M, Burst Threshold 2M, Burst Time 8

lte1 served as the target network in my use case (which necessitates flipping Up- and Download as opposed to the above example (the 'Target Upload' column actually limits download if one chooses the LTE interface as Target).

Curious: How to you set those limits ?
I thought it was not possible on interface ?

I just did speedtests (with a PC client to speedtest.net) at different times of the day.
The lte interface should probably not be used for speed limiting, but it worked in my case during random tests. And I since then just left it as my problem was solved.

Can you show the relevant part of the config please ?

Always interested to learn ...

The remaining mystery in my setup - so to speak - is that data transfer will collapse every now and then (about once an hour) for a couple of seconds and then resume again. This becomes noticeable in short buffering in IPTV video streaming. With applications such as Youtube (longer buffer time) or normal websurfing this wouldn't even be noticeable. The log doesn't show a loss of connection.

I dont know what could be causing it, maybe carrier?
Last week I've strapped it to a powerbank and threw it in a bag, walked around for an hour watching videos on my phone. It changed celltowers without interruptions. And Link Downs remained the same.

It could be the band or "carrier aggregation" switching. There isn't a great way to log/track that, outside inexactly monitoring changes in the signal readings.

Are there any internal photos?
Has anyone fitted an external LTE aerial? My caravan is aluminum framed and also has an aluminum skin making it an RF shield. Otherwise this is a great caravan router with it's small dimensions and low power requirements.

When @holvoetn doesn't want to take his router apart I will


But Mikrotik... god damnit, your clips are strong as fu***

Does the HAP AX have a USB Hub or is it just used to power the device, ie one can power the device, but also add additional USB devices such as a HUB etc?

USB port is only used for power.

Thanks! Pity.

Mikrotik LTE did not work good for me ever, not in the days of the old SXT LTE and not now. Always the device supplied from the mobile ISP reach way higher speeds and lower latency. I had the best luck buying bridge-mode capable hardware from the mobile ISP and put a mikrotik router behind.

Never had a problem with Mikrotik LTE and I installed quite a few, and all in fire safety application where I really need something reliable. To be honest speed is not important in my use case...

But with hAP ax lite LTE I have pretty decent speeds with latency same as my mobile phone.

Also one more thing to consider is LTE category, for e.g many service provider will give you higher category router so you can achieve higher speeds, and I assume that your SXT LTE was cat4 or 6 ?

Are your devices also showing just 224 MB memory?

As HDD shows nicely - maybe just a display or calculation 'bug' ?

Can confirm, same thing here, I have 4 of them (one is my, other 3 are from work) and they all show the same thing.

Not sure right now but i think ax2 also reports 928MB, also cap ax reports 928 MB as well.

Regarding ax lite, now i would like to have possibility to power it with poe

So, if we assume wifiwave2 'costs' 32MB memory per interface - okay.
But why not showing the 'Total Memory' (chip) correctly and taking the cost of wifiwave2 off the 'Free Memory' then?
Still a displaying/cosmetical thing, no?

I didn't even noticed that until someone mentioned that I mean ax3 have more than enough memory for containers, etc...

Back in time, when PC BIOS could not smartly remap RAM, it was common to see sone weird RAM sizes. Reason is that peripherial devices need some IO memory mapped into main CPU memory layout. Peripherials are often not flexible and if BIOS can not remap physical RAM to other regions, that part of RAM is not usable to OS kernel. Which then results in memory available to OS smaller than physical RAM size.

If it bothers you that much, feel free to ask support.
And do let us know the response, please

So, I have an explanation from Support [SUP-128254]:

First answer:
It is totally normal because RouterOS itself needs RAM to work.
(Okay but we know this and it should still show the Total correctly.)

Second answer:
For IPQ5010 devices, part of the RAM is reserved for wifi firmware.
Exactly 32MB, so its the reason. For example, for dual-band devices wifi firmware takes 64MB.
(This perfectly explains and answers my question.)

And:
You (not always but very often) were right with you guesses @holvoetn

We will see if we can somehow make it show total and reserved, so it's clear, but even linux kernel does not show this reserved memory, so it will not be easy.

Oh wow - this would be IT

We will see if we can somehow make it show total and reserved, so it's clear, but even linux kernel does not show this reserved memory, so it will not be easy.

Modern PCs with ACPI support offer reading DMI table which contains lots of hardware information. Such as information about "Memory Device", a.k.a. RAM modules. So reading this information it's easy to get size of physical memory. Then there's "Memory Array Mapped [Address]" which contains amount of memory, remapped by BIOS. And then there's amount reported by kernel as total memory ... which accounts all the un-remapped RAM regions and memory used by kernel (and drivers).

All of this is wrong... It is not about reserved RAM or something like that. In fact the memory is 256.000.000 Bytes. Divide that by 1M (with base 2, so 2072576) you have 244MB.

Oh, I misread...
Then it's possibly a mix of both.

RB5009 = no wifi = no memory reservation and nicely showing 1024MB of memory.
No complicated Bytes/Megabytes calculations required.

MikroTik Support answer is perfectly fine.
1x wifi band = 32MB memory reservation
2x wifi band = 64MB memory reservation

All I know is must be a decent enough device if the complaints are in the calculation of memory.

But on a hAPaxLite, the 32MB per wifiwave2 would make sense. One 2.4Ghz interface, so 224+32=256, which the memory spec for hAPaxLite.
Actually that explains it may not just storage space why wifiwave2 doesn't fit on cAPac/hAPac[2|3]/wAPac — if wifiwave2 driver is mapping 32MB x 2 of physical RAM, that half of memory on 128MB RAM devices...

So, today I upgraded firmware of the built-in LTE card from 16121.1034.00.01.01.03 to 16121.1034.00.01.01.04.


Upgrade went super smooth but requires a reboot afterwards.

Does anyone know where to find official info/announcement - or even more important: changelog - for this version?

Yeah I thought so
I just give the 'Check Firmware' button a hit from time to time...
Not that I have to but just out of curiosity

All I know is must be a decent enough device if the complaints are in the calculation of memory.

But on a hAPaxLite, the 32MB per wifiwave2 would make sense. One 2.4Ghz interface, so 224+32=256, which the memory spec for hAPaxLite.
Actually that explains it may not just storage space why wifiwave2 doesn't fit on cAPac/hAPac[2|3]/wAPac — if wifiwave2 driver is mapping 32MB x 2 of physical RAM, that half of memory on 128MB RAM devices...

The "32MB per wifiwave2" makes sense in theory, but the empirical evidence tells otherwise. When disabling or deleting the wifiwave2 package from the AX Lite/LTE6, total-memory still shows at 224.0MiB, no changes from when wifiwave2 is installed and active except for the wireless interface disappearing from the system.

There is seldom an announcement about new version.
I already asked about changelog in the past to support, they don't give it.

I was hoping that the 04 version would fix the "sim is locked" after modem or device reboot when SIM PIN is enabled. Unfortunately this isn't the case. Too bad the firmware update changelogs for the modem aren't made public.

For those interested, I tried getting the full firmware for the FG621-EA via the update URL. I was disappointed to find out that the updates were actually firmware patches implemented as binary diffs from the last version, which the patch was based on. This means that the update files are only smaller in size and not the full firmware release for the modem. But it is good to know that the update mechanism is implemented securely using signed firmware files.

I was trying to study its filesystem and get some list of supported AT commands along the way. In contrast, the R11e-LTE6 modem and its variants are provided full firmware files via the update URL.

Here are the update URLs for this modem: You can open "image" using any capable file archiver and see the files contained therein. You can also study how the patching process works. And yes, you can also use firmware=image when upgrading the modem whenever OTA upgrading fails for some reason, after downloading it to the local filesystem and verifying the required version before updating.

The "32MB per wifiwave2" makes sense in theory, but the empirical evidence tells otherwise. When disabling or deleting the wifiwave2 package from the AX Lite/LTE6, total-memory still shows at 224.0MiB, no changes from when wifiwave2 is installed and active except for the wireless interface disappearing from the system.

Fair question, IDK. But perhaps physical memory reservation happens in the main package in expectation of the wifiwave2 package. At the end of the day, the kernel will allocate at least some physical memory that wouldn't be available to a usermode process's heap... so this is never going to equal the total memory*.

*unless one changes the definitions of what's shown

The "32MB per wifiwave2" makes sense in theory, but the empirical evidence tells otherwise. When disabling or deleting the wifiwave2 package from the AX Lite/LTE6, total-memory still shows at 224.0MiB, no changes from when wifiwave2 is installed and active except for the wireless interface disappearing from the system.

Fair question, IDK. But perhaps physical memory reservation happens in the main package in expectation of the wifiwave2 package. At the end of the day, the kernel will allocate at least some physical memory that wouldn't be available to a usermode process's heap... so this is never going to equal the total memory*.

*unless one changes the definitions of what's shown

At this point, all that we can do is speculate. However, that's still 32MiB unaccounted for, wifiwave2 or not. I used to own a hAP ac2 and whether it was running ROSv6 ot ROSv7, you still see the full 128MiB total-memory.

Whether this is only a minor cosmetic issue or not (it could be coded to display any value and we would be none the wiser without root), that total-memory doesn't mean much (except to make you feel better about your hardware or something else like this for example) without a way to view /proc/meminfo.

But perhaps physical memory reservation happens in the main package in expectation of the wifiwave2 package.

Back in the day of plain BIOS and stupid MMUs, what happened was this: physical memory was contiguous address space and started from 0 to the RAM size (e.g. 33554431 for 32MB size). If there was a peripherial device with its own memory and with fixed address range (e.g. from 16777216 to 20971519 for 4MB memory region in range between 16MB and 20MB), BIOS only excluded RAM from being used in that region but didn't remap it to different address region. This was quite often as peripherial devices tended to be pretty simple, but so was BIOS. So the example ended up with 28MB of usable RAM (and 4MB of video / frame buffer) ... and kernel reported 28M as total RAM. All this happened before kernel even started, kernel only received RAM table so it was aware that region between 16MB and 20MB was not available as RAM. So this didn't depend on some driver being loaded or not. What driver did do (after eventually being loaded) is to figure out that certain memory address space was mapped to certain peripherial functionality and then driver used that address space accordingly.

So, I came back from security summit where ax lite lte was used as an router and CSS610 poe version was used as a poe switch for powering equipment.

I wanted to see how it will preform in high noise environment and believe me, that is very high noise environment with not only 2.4GHz WiFi blasting all around but also wireless devices working on same frequency.

Ax lite as an AP preformed surprisingly good, with 3 devices connected all the time and there was no dropouts or any problem.

But I noticed that when i had to use it in station mode there was a problem connecting to wireless network. Our stand was right above APs, and they were about 5 or 6 meters above floor level without any obstacles between them.

I manage to connect but connection was horrible, when pinging i got timeouts and occasionally something went through but with a ping as high as 600 ms.

When connecting to my phone as hotspot there were no such problems.

Also connecting phone to wireless network there worked without a problem, ping 20-40 ms, speed, well 15-20 mbps

Overall i was happy with performance but as ax lite have only one radio... I had to go to tp link stand... To borrow their EAP225... So mikrotik, maybe you should came to the summit as exhibitors. There was cambium, tp link, cisco i think...

Hi,

MikroTik NooB here. Searched the interwebs but didn't find an conclusive answer YET to my question.
Is it possible to use this device in Bridge mode ? I don't need wireless network, or router mode, or NATting.
So in fact use this as an 4G+ LTE modem with LAN-port.

I know the device is a bit overkill for what I am asking, but this way I have a good excuse to fiamiliarize myself with mikrotik RouterOs.

Don't flame me plz, just explaining what I want to accomplish.
I have a Netgear Orbi Mesh network, with Pfsense as firewall/DNS/DHCP/..... All working very well.
But I would like to make my internet access to failover to Mobile network whenever my main internet connection goes down.

One solution was to buy an Netgear LM1200 (which also has the possibility to do the failover, but too slow). That one is usable in bridge mode, so in fact as a modem without any routing stuff.
Con: it's only a CAT 4 LTE modem so limited to 150 Mbit/s

For the same price I could have this hAP ax lite LTE6, which has a LTE CAT 6 modem, and RouterOS
If someone can confirm me that it's possible to put this in bridge mode, disable the wifi, and use it to accomplish what i want, that would be great.
I just need it to provide an IPV6 & IPV4 address to my pfsense box.

The plus for me would be all the other endless possibilities this device has, for example when travelling ...

Thanks in advance !

For those interested, I tried getting the full firmware for the FG621-EA via the update URL. I was disappointed to find out that the updates were actually firmware patches implemented as binary diffs from the last version, which the patch was based on. This means that the update files are only smaller in size and not the full firmware release for the modem. But it is good to know that the update mechanism is implemented securely using signed firmware files.

I was trying to study its filesystem and get some list of supported AT commands along the way. In contrast, the R11e-LTE6 modem and its variants are provided full firmware files via the update URL.

Here are the update URLs for this modem:

Code: Select all

From 16121.1034.00.01.01.01 to 16121.1034.00.01.01.03:

https://upgrade.mikrotik.com/firmware/FG621-EA/16121.1034.00.01.01.01/latest
https://upgrade.mikrotik.com/firmware/FG621-EA/16121.1034.00.01.01.01/image

From 16121.1034.00.01.01.03 to 16121.1034.00.01.01.04:

https://upgrade.mikrotik.com/firmware/FG621-EA/16121.1034.00.01.01.03/latest
https://upgrade.mikrotik.com/firmware/FG621-EA/16121.1034.00.01.01.03/image

You can open "image" using any capable file archiver and see the files contained therein. You can also study how the patching process works. And yes, you can also use firmware=image when upgrading the modem whenever OTA upgrading fails for some reason, after downloading it to the local filesystem and verifying the required version before updating.

Would it be possible to update the modem and apply multiple incremental patches at the same time (for example, by appending all files into one)? I would also like to know if /interface/lte/firmware-upgrade command is able to fully upgrade the modem in one execution (if more than one patch is available) or if multiple commands are required.

Thanks in advance!

Hello
can this "hAP ax lite LTE6" be used as a client OpenVPN router connected to my home base running pfSense and a fix IP address?
OpenVPN client seems to be supported by the Router OS. If the OpenVPN client is configured and is connected to the home base (running OpenVPN server under pfSense) are the devices connected to this "hAP ax lite LTE6" by LAN and WiFi be able to have access to IP addresses of the home LAN. Can be a full tunnel be configured in such a way for the devices connected to this LTE router?
Thanks!

@holvoetn : maybe you have a link to the "best" how-to using Wireguard for that? Thanks!

Remember times when those speeds were considered blazing fast

Happy New Year

Received mine, and I am quite happy for now.

One thing that worries me... The power LED does not light. Is there any way I broke it with configuration? I did a reset without default for a clean start...

I have...
So that should not turn my LEDs off. Also the user led is ok and lights when it is supposed to.
However when user led is turned off (intentionally) I can not tell if the device is powered or not.

Even after plugging the power cable I have not seen the power led to light...