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Author Topic: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?  (Read 16026 times)

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Offline verdantrouter

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USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« on: March 22, 2015, 01:56:07 pm »
I see on OpenWRT there is this page with general pointers towards enabling an OpenWRT router to do routing via USB modem.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howtobuild/wireless-router-with-a-3g-dongle

I was really hoping this might be something of a feature which could come soon to Almond+ because there are places in the world where 4G is way better than wired WAN and having the ability to have diverse network connections would be great for failover reliability.

Any idea if this might be on the radar? In absence of a repo/recipe for roll-your-own Almond+ firmware I guess this sort of thing has to wait for securfi work to be done to make it happen and I know you guys are awfully busy with lots of stuff.

Best wishes,

Martin

LGNilsson

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2015, 03:38:00 am »
It's not something that's being worked on currently.

Offline danb420

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2015, 12:02:36 am »
I'd like to throw my hat in the ring, that this would be a great feature to bring to the Almond+.

I have used the Piper home security system for over a year now, and just purchased a Canary as I'm thinking of switching to that platform. Just recently, my ISP had hours-long outages in the middle of the day, 2 days in a row. This was while I was at work, and both of the security systems were essentially useless during the outages, as you'd expect. These are critical services for the home these days, so if you want to take advantage of these new home security products, you need dual WAN.

Just a simple fallback/backup using a WLAN USB dongle would be perfect. Here in the US, mobile broadband prices are still relatively very expensive. With a simple fallback, you'd only be using very little bandwidth until the primary connection comes back up, and only very rarely. Something like T-Mobile's data plans that accumulate what you don't use for the past year would really work well with this situation. If there is an outage with your primary and you're home, and maybe were just about to stream a movie, you could still do that on your backup WLAN connection as you've accumulated many GBs on your plan.

Amritendu

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2015, 09:17:26 pm »
High speed USP ports does keeps the path open for a possible 3G/4G dongle fallback/support. But as mentioned earlier, its not something being worked on currently and we don't have any time line for the same, unless most of the major feature request/bugs are addressed.

Offline Andy

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2015, 12:35:55 pm »
Hello @Amritendu and @Lars!

If you are soliciting votes on this functionality "enhancement", i would like to add my +1.  Actually, as i recall, In one of your videos, during your kickstarter campaign you advertised it as a feature.  On my list of proposed priorities, i'd place this higher than HA, right after basic routing.   I would consider WAN backup as an essential part of advanced routing and something i would expect from a modern top-tier router.

Thanks,
Andy

Offline andersos

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2015, 01:09:42 pm »
Seeing that 4G broadband availability is spreading like wildfire even where I live, I have to agree that this would be a pretty
big feature for Almond+. So I'd like to put in my +1 for this to be implemented   :)

Amritendu

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2015, 02:10:18 pm »
Thank you all. Yes every vote counts here and to add to Andy, the hardware which was featured in the KS video was a different one all together and has undergone major updates to reach where it is today.  Will surely pass on these requests to the concerned.

Offline cff

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2015, 04:44:05 pm »
Hello @Amritendu and @Lars!

If you are soliciting votes on this functionality "enhancement", i would like to add my +1.  Actually, as i recall, In one of your videos, during your kickstarter campaign you advertised it as a feature.  On my list of proposed priorities, i'd place this higher than HA, right after basic routing.   I would consider WAN backup as an essential part of advanced routing and something i would expect from a modern top-tier router.

Thanks,
Andy


This was indeed listed as a feature in the original KS campaign. I can understand it being given a lower priority than the other items being worked on, but it seems appropriate to expect this as a feature to be added (without "special" request, as if it hadn't been listed), at some point.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2015, 05:46:07 pm by cff »

Offline frwickst

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2015, 12:47:20 pm »
+1 for this feature, I was hoping this would be something that would be implemented by now as this was the main reason I backed your product on KS. It was listed with all the other features so I thought that it would be included in the first months. Now my Almond+ is just laying on my desk, working as a paper weight...

Offline Neel737

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2015, 06:07:01 pm »
+1 as well. In fact I was looking for a router with fallback WAN feature.


Offline dcb

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #11 on: May 06, 2015, 01:10:45 am »
+1 for this feature.

I sort of hoped it would already have been established since it was mentioned in update 8.

Offline spooky123

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #12 on: May 06, 2015, 07:07:31 am »
+1

Agree with the comments this is needed.

Offline aemergin

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2015, 12:34:16 pm »
Add me to the list - this promised feature was one of my main reasons for going with the Almond +

Amritendu

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Re: USB 3/4G modem wan dongle compatibility?
« Reply #14 on: May 06, 2015, 01:12:34 pm »
@aemergin, it wasn't really a promised feature and if you are referring to the CES 2013 video where our CEO was giving a demo, it was a different hardware (with much lower specs than the current one you own). What's worth mentioning is that it would be added, but not immediately, however, every input counts.

 

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