Home Internet Port Forwarding working in 2021?

Got it running and managing 4g / LTE bands on linux and Win10/11 - working on android config now. CLI tool should be 100% for beta in next 1-3 days - just finishing the 5g work tonight

It’s a 3 part tool - monitoring, network configuration, ip/ban config/fall over

written in c mainly, user interaction and T-M gui extensibility is in python - flask takes on the gui and api work, C-Make will handle the binaries and executable-  looking for a consistent CI/CD w/ wrapper integration before finishing the build repo for public view on github. 

I’m close to an initial mod release - this was a bit more then  I originally thought but I’m glad it seems to be able to do a bit more as far a as firmware access on the device as well. So if you are the network admin type or want to set up a local bug log to find isolated issue to your configuration - this should be simple setting to configure and an easy setting add-on for the gui. I’ll update again shortly - TY 

Port forwarding still a problem: bump

Fulling running on Fedora 35 - see below attached. Proxy / File Share / Network access / VPN all run for all bands - I’ll send SS of the cli MOD once I have all the bugs done

Connected to all TV’s / Roku / 3 Cloud Drives / Local Cloud / Remote Server over VPN / Spit IP for multiple access - connected to a VM run on my other computer and file transfers as well

should work for most situations -

Next steps - win / android debugs

gui app build - final

beta release CLI

beta release gui

G-Play stable ver

I have been using t-mobile hotspot and other carriers for years and have also had issues with the port forwarding. The issue is that t-mobile and others use a carrier grade NAT which will never assign you a public IP when connecting to the internet. You will be assigned a shared IP to WAN which means there is no way to direct any particular port to your device directly. Unless t-mobile offers a service to allow a public or dedicated IP this probably will never be supported, even if the router they provide has it available in their settings. 

However, I have found a decent work around that has worked well for me, though I am still waiting for my device to come in for me to try on the t-mobile home internet. It works well with my phone tethering and hotspot though so I assume it will work the same. PureVPN has a service with their VPN that assigns your connection with a dedicated IP address and port forwarding. It works with PPTP and L2TP / ipsec only but this makes it very easy to set up. PPTP is hardly encrypted and is not standard to use for many VPNs, but it is very very fast and is minimal on latency / bandwidth compromises. 

I use a second router with dd-wrt firmare and use PPTP to connect straight through its WAN connection settings. Super easy to setup, and the dedicated IP you assigned becomes the WAN IP of the second router which means port forwarding is used directly. No need to open any ports or DMZ with the t-mobile router at all. Routers will vary with PPTP WAN support, but this should be a pretty common protocol so others might work the same. 

This is actually easier than it might seem, and it works better than you might expect. The benefit is that you will also have a dedicated IP which is super handy to have. The downside is that there is a cost to these services, but PureVPN also supports OpenVPN so you can use to connect other devices as a standard VPN. Its a work around, but so far its the only way I have found to poke holes through that wall. 

Just started setting up my T-Mobile Home Internet Gateway, and the speeds and latency look very good, (low 10’s of milliseconds ping, 300-500 Mbps downlink, 50-80 Mbps uplink, BUT, there doesn’t seem to be anyway to accomplish port forwarding in the web GUI. What a major oversight. They need to add several controls:

• DHCP reservation (required for port forwarding)
• Port forwarding (to devices that have IP reservations)
• Auto firmware updates
• Ability to modify DNS servers that are used

In absence of these functions, they could perhaps provide a way to act exactly like a cable modem: provide all ports at a wired Ethernet connection and allow the WiFi to be turned off. Let us do the rest if you can’t do it.

Such poop engineering I swear…

T-Mobile could have had a great win here.

But they F up. 

I knew it was too good to be true. 

UPDATE: Completed network monitor and reboot capability for KDV21 models - working out Nokia, fall over and band auto-selection is jumpy, working out the systemctl and sysconfig monitor necessary to overlap dis/connection timing that avoids loss but can avoid looping. I’m using py, c++, and bash - at this point- this will allow all Linux, Android, and WinOS to work with the tool, I’m going to attempt to keep this consistent throughout the build to offer a one time release to most users and maintain consistency for updates.

Repo is being set-up, building now.

Next steps:

PHP config library and db on GCP to QA known configurations of APN’s, Ban’s, by region to TM cell towers. Looking for 80% ^ before leaving QA to move to further capabilities/ML and will start the GUI in the mean time.

Post library:

Api and wrapper/installer for the GUI. This will handle the packaging, delivery, and CI/CD for the released application.

Expected outcomes after QA pass:

Looking at maybe 24-48hr for a CLI beta, 48-72hr before an app GUI (based on QA testing), and will run the beta until 90%+ over 72hr live before a ‘stable’ build fork to commit over to Google Play or other app stores for free download. 

All my best, KS

I just got the LTE wifi gateway yesterday and do not see anyway to even setup port forwarding. I called support yesterday, was on hold for several hours, the "tech" who took my call didn't seem very knowledgeable at all. So, nothing was resolved. 

I called again today, a message stated it would be approximately 2 hours and would I like a call back, so I said yes to set that up. 6 hours later, they call, and I am put on hold for 40 minutes, then the phone went quiet. I finally hung up. 

Looking through the available settings, I don't see anywhere to setup port forwarding. There are very little options. It's as if it is setup for the most basic non-technical user, who they don't want touching anything. It's disappointing. 

I'm guessing that we may need to get another router and connect the T-Mobile router to the wan port? Frustrating, because before signing up, I made my requirements clear and they assured me their service would allow them. 

Same here, I am not putting up with this double NATed bs.

They should have advertised this as a home hotspot not home internet. 

Price is good performance for internet browsing is good too but the hardware features and engineering backend setup is short sighted on the very best of days. 

Now day with wfh, secured setups many of us have is poop at best. Bye bye TMobile. 🙌

Not like Cox gets prizes but at least I get a public ip. 

Hey - read through these posts, ngrok was my first thought.

I’m just getting started on this - I only started on T-Mobile 2 weeks ago and the issue is just as described.

I can possibly containerize the software I write if it solves the issue, if I can, I will release to opensource and provide a link, but it seems straight forward. Dependencies would be basic for linux and android users - I am on the dev community for Win11 where I’ll work with others for a Win10/11 thread to begin working on a conversion if need be - ngrok works on both operation systems, my only unknowns as of now is Google/Apple - but I have dev accounts there as well and can begin the threads appropriately but wouldn’t be able to personally advise on the issue of app creation unless I really dedicate the time.

I’ll keep this as the main thread until I finish development or run into a major issue, for the release of any application I will begin a new thread with the application download / docs / issues page and provide a link to this thread here . That will keep this organized. If issues occur from there, appropriate arrangements will be instructed on how to contact me on the repos where I make it available and reach out to the developer community at TM about forking the repo to theirs as well. 

Give me some time - my schedule is pretty tight but tonight I will more then likely have mine correctly configured - from there I’ll plan the build appropriately and build a repo where you can follow the progress I make - as I make it and ask question or leave comments. I don’t expect an initial release for Linux distros / Android 10/11/12 - to be longer the 1-2wks max for a stable version. Others will need to be patient as I work with other developers on the issue on other operating systems, I doubt they would be much more complex, but I need to develop it in c++ or another basic OOL to abstract it to API’s that can then work with delivery systems that are, as well, cross platform compatible. Java will be the answer there as I know AirBnB and Moz have java engine extensions to other C like networking languages for Apple and Gentoo distro’s like Google’s Chrome OS.

Please be patient - I in know way am associated with T-Mobile, just a customer. I love to solve problems - this seems like a good place to start anyway. If I hit bottlenecks or anything that will disrupt the development process, I will update here so no one keeps there hopes up too long.

All my best - KS