Anthro
Expert Member
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Unrestricted APN
- Thread starter vodacom3g
- Start date
Post some traceroutes and ipconfig dumps when you're back on site and we can try help you.
Anthro
Expert Member
You work @ Vodacom ? 
jannievanzyl
Telecoms expert
You work @ Vodacom ?
No, but ambo knows his IP.
You 100% sure you've configured the APN to 'unrestricted'?
If so, send your MSISDN (cell number) together with the region you're in to VD and he can get the guys to check why you're getting a NAT'd IP pushed back.
But check that config again, seems you're still on the internet APN. IIRC, you need to unselect 'default' APN in some of the dashboards before the entered APN will work. Or something like that.
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Anthro
Expert Member
Definitely not a config issue, even manually set connection strings 
Will send through the detail to VD
Will send through the detail to VD
Vodacom and DynDNS
I've got a bit of a technology experiment going on and it looks to me as though I've painted myself into a corner.
I've built quite a serious 3G router using these items:
RB411U
Sierra MC8792 Card
11dBi GSM Yagi
This is a deadly combo and is perfect for what I want to do, namely drop the router in a remote site and still be able to connect to the 3G network, but here's my problem:
How do I get Vodacom to give me a proper, public IP address when this lot connects to them?
Each time I connect, I get a 10.x.y.z private IP address that then gets NATted to a public IP address.
I need a public IP address as I want to run DynDNS on the router and connect to it via the Vodacom network. I'm not asking for a static IP address, just a public IP address.
The plan is to drop these at all our remote sites and leave them connected so that we can get into the routers if the primary wireless backbones were to go down. It's easy to set DynDNS up on MikroTik, which means it's easy to access the router using the same fully qualified domain name each time - even if the public IP were to change.
More and more companies and individuals are going to the likes of Scoop, Miro, Maxload and Uniterm, buying 5GHz radios and setting up point to point connections without any thought to the channel frequency or channel width that they are using. This is causing established links that have been running for a long time to just drop for no reason. If the other end of a link is 30km away, somebody has to then get into a vehicle and drive there and scan the airwaves with another person at the other side of the link doing the same until a clear frequency has been found. Then as soon as the next idiot comes along and parks his 30dBi Rocket5 dishes being used on a 5km link on the new frequency, the process has to be repeated again and again and again. It all takes time and costs money, so being able to log into a remote site would have a huge financial and time benefit.
Vodacom is doing a clever product called a data sim that's perfect for what we want to do as there's no voice component attached to it.
I've got a bit of a technology experiment going on and it looks to me as though I've painted myself into a corner.
I've built quite a serious 3G router using these items:
RB411U
Sierra MC8792 Card
11dBi GSM Yagi
This is a deadly combo and is perfect for what I want to do, namely drop the router in a remote site and still be able to connect to the 3G network, but here's my problem:
How do I get Vodacom to give me a proper, public IP address when this lot connects to them?
Each time I connect, I get a 10.x.y.z private IP address that then gets NATted to a public IP address.
I need a public IP address as I want to run DynDNS on the router and connect to it via the Vodacom network. I'm not asking for a static IP address, just a public IP address.
The plan is to drop these at all our remote sites and leave them connected so that we can get into the routers if the primary wireless backbones were to go down. It's easy to set DynDNS up on MikroTik, which means it's easy to access the router using the same fully qualified domain name each time - even if the public IP were to change.
More and more companies and individuals are going to the likes of Scoop, Miro, Maxload and Uniterm, buying 5GHz radios and setting up point to point connections without any thought to the channel frequency or channel width that they are using. This is causing established links that have been running for a long time to just drop for no reason. If the other end of a link is 30km away, somebody has to then get into a vehicle and drive there and scan the airwaves with another person at the other side of the link doing the same until a clear frequency has been found. Then as soon as the next idiot comes along and parks his 30dBi Rocket5 dishes being used on a 5km link on the new frequency, the process has to be repeated again and again and again. It all takes time and costs money, so being able to log into a remote site would have a huge financial and time benefit.
Vodacom is doing a clever product called a data sim that's perfect for what we want to do as there's no voice component attached to it.
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What you need is the 'unrestricted' APN which doesn't block inbound connections.
How do I get this?
http://www.vodacom.co.za/portal/sit...iFormat=format6/javascript:top.nullSrc()&ht=t
@Mod: The link in the first post gives a 404 error.
Thank you ginggs. This is much appreciated.
Thanks, updated.
So I faxed them the form and a copy of my ID yesterday. They then called me at an unmentionable hour this morning to tell me that the line had been converted to the unrestricted APN.
I then disconnected the PPP circuit and reconnected. However, I'm still being allocated a 10.64.64.x IP address.
Am I missing something here?
Should I not be getting a public IP address?
I then disconnected the PPP circuit and reconnected. However, I'm still being allocated a 10.64.64.x IP address.
Am I missing something here?
Should I not be getting a public IP address?
You need to change the APN from 'internet' to 'unrestricted' in your PPP settings.
Edit: Not sure why you are seeing a 10.64.64.x address, IIRC even on the 'internet' APN you should be getting a public IP, the only difference is on the 'internet' APN all incoming ports are blocked.
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Thanks ginggs.
I changed the APN to 'unrestricted', but all it did was change my IP address from 10.64.64.x to 10.64.64.x+1
Ek weet nie. Suppose it's time to email 155datasupport and hear what they have to say. Unless someone else has any ideas?
Update...this is a little weird.
I changed the connection method from "Dial on demand" to "Always on" and suddenly it's giving me a 41.192.145.y IP address.
Now for the even weirder part. Vodacom Business to Vodacom 3G - routes halfway around the world.
I changed the connection method from "Dial on demand" to "Always on" and suddenly it's giving me a 41.192.145.y IP address.
Now for the even weirder part. Vodacom Business to Vodacom 3G - routes halfway around the world.
The 41.192.x.x range is correct for unrestricted APN. You should always fall in that range. Maybe something hadn't filtered through.
Show us an example traceroute.
This is from RouterOS:
I still can't ping it from outside, though.
Suspect I need to point the Yagi down a bit, but that's for another day as this is all still experimental at this stage.
O/T: Are you using RouterOS 5.1?
You can fiddle with the Data Channel and Info Channel and you'll be able to retrieve operator info and signal strength from PPP Info in WinBox.
For my Huawei E1820 I had to set Data Channel to 0 and Info Channel to 3, YMMV.
Negative. 4.16
5.1 Doesn't work properly with the Sierra cards. They tell me 5.2 does, but I've decided to wait two weeks for any issues to be resolved before I look to install it anywhere.
Ah OK, maybe the signal strength, etc. won't be available to you then. 4.xx doesn't work properly with the new Huawei cards so I've been running 5.0 since the early release candidates.