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4GEE and Huawei B818 problem

TheGreenFrog

Casual Member
Yesterday I switched from a FWA broadband system (which had intermittent issues caused by line of sight problems) to 4GEE using a Huawei B818 router. My FWA system used a Netgear Orbi as the router and I now have the Orbi in AP mode attached to the Huawei (tried bridge mode but Orbi could not access internet). The system works fine and I get good speeds, but there is a big problem: my various Amazon devices cannot connect to the internet (Huawei router shows they are connected to the LAN) even after factory resets etc. In addition the wifi calling feature on mobile phones does not work: the phones are connected to the network and operate fine with browsing and whatsapp calls etc, but try a mobile call (most areas of my house, apart from where the router is, have no mobile reception) and they do not connect. If I set the phones to flight mode, put wifi on and try a mobile call the phones indicates that there is no wifi connection (when there is). I have tried many solutions (including disable firewall, manually put in APN, call EE tech) so this post is my last chance before cancelling the EE contract! I am wondering if it is a router compatibility problem and I should switch to the (expensive monthly pay) EE approved router.
 
Yesterday I switched from a FWA broadband system (which had intermittent issues caused by line of sight problems) to 4GEE using a Huawei B818 router. My FWA system used a Netgear Orbi as the router and I now have the Orbi in AP mode attached to the Huawei (tried bridge mode but Orbi could not access internet). The system works fine and I get good speeds, but there is a big problem: my various Amazon devices cannot connect to the internet (Huawei router shows they are connected to the LAN) even after factory resets etc. In addition the wifi calling feature on mobile phones does not work: the phones are connected to the network and operate fine with browsing and whatsapp calls etc, but try a mobile call (most areas of my house, apart from where the router is, have no mobile reception) and they do not connect. If I set the phones to flight mode, put wifi on and try a mobile call the phones indicates that there is no wifi connection (when there is). I have tried many solutions (including disable firewall, manually put in APN, call EE tech) so this post is my last chance before cancelling the EE contract! I am wondering if it is a router compatibility problem and I should switch to the (expensive monthly pay) EE approved router.
Check the APN and make sure it's ipv4-only, might help.
 
Lucian, thanks although the router's interface does not give you a choice to disable. I did disable ipv6 on the mobile phone (in the hope that would sort the wifi calling issue) but that made no difference.
 
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Yesterday I switched from a FWA broadband system (which had intermittent issues caused by line of sight problems) to 4GEE using a Huawei B818 router. My FWA system used a Netgear Orbi as the router and I now have the Orbi in AP mode attached to the Huawei (tried bridge mode but Orbi could not access internet). The system works fine and I get good speeds, but there is a big problem: my various Amazon devices cannot connect to the internet (Huawei router shows they are connected to the LAN) even after factory resets etc. In addition the wifi calling feature on mobile phones does not work: the phones are connected to the network and operate fine with browsing and whatsapp calls etc, but try a mobile call (most areas of my house, apart from where the router is, have no mobile reception) and they do not connect. If I set the phones to flight mode, put wifi on and try a mobile call the phones indicates that there is no wifi connection (when there is). I have tried many solutions (including disable firewall, manually put in APN, call EE tech) so this post is my last chance before cancelling the EE contract! I am wondering if it is a router compatibility problem and I should switch to the (expensive monthly pay) EE approved router.
Can the DNS of one of the Amazon devices be changed to either 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1 to see if that helps? (Somewhat of a shot in the dark.)

Another nice test is to put the EE SIM in a mobile phone and connect Amazon devices by mobile hotspot to see if the issue is the Huawei B818.
 
I bought the EE Smart 4G Hub but that had the same issues. I then put a Vodaphone SIM in the Huawei router and hey presto wifi calling starts working and all the Amazon devices connect. So it is an EE issue. Problem is that Vodaphone signal is very weak here and speeds slow so not really a viable alternative. I will be cancelling the EE contract and look for an alternative.
 
While this may not help you directly I ran an EE (Scancom) sim in my B818 for 14 months with no such issues - My Amazon devices connected fine and wifi calling worked fine.
 
I have just tried three different EE sims - two were obtained by me from an EE store (both on 30 day contracts) and one is a business sim (through my work). The two retail sims don't allow wifi calling or Amazon connections, but the business sim does. So there must be something about the consumer sims..
 
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I have just tried three different EE sims - two were obtained by me from an EE store (both on 30 day contracts) and one is a business sim (through my work). The two retail sims don't allow wifi calling or Amazon connections, but the business sim does. So there must be something about the consumer sims..

That may make sense as I'm pretty confident the Scancom EE sims are business sims.
 
Lucian, thanks although the router's interface does not give you a choice to disable. I did disable ipv6 on the mobile phone (in the hope that would sort the wifi calling issue) but that made no difference.
In terms of debugging the WiFi calling issue, this reminded me of a good thread on their community forum some years ago so transplanting the information in case anyone hits the something similar in the future. I haven't verified the information myself and it may not be current or correct.

Credit to user "5J8":
Each Mobile company in each country has a dns name for wifi calling :

epdg.epc.mnc###.mcc###.pub.3gppnetwork.org

The United Kingdong is mcc 234 and the mnc designates the mobile phone company EE is 030, 031, 032, 033 and 034

You can look these numbers up at http://www.mcc-mnc.com/

for example:
epdg.epc.mnc030.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org

by doing an nslookup on each of these addresses you can determine the ip addresses
nslookup epdg.epc.mnc030.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org
nslookup epdg.epc.mnc031.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org
nslookup epdg.epc.mnc030.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org
nslookup epdg.epc.mnc030.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org

You will find that EE only use 4 ip addresses :
109.249.190.48
109.249.180.0
109.249.186.72
109.249.188.56

The ports for Wifi calling are actually ALL UDP ports
udp/500,
udp/4500,
udp/5060-5061,
udp 40283-59999

 
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I had better have another look! I have just logged into the EE router and that does have an option to specify ipv4 only - which I did and it solved the wifi calling/Amazon issue. But the Huawei router is much faster than the EE one. I don't really understand why EE business and Vodaphone sims work fine, but EE consumer one needs restriction to ipv4 (grateful to you all for identifying the issue though).
 
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Errr...... I didn't scroll down far enough when doing manual APN set up. All now up and running on the Huawei. I am rather embarrassed but very thankful to you all as problem solved!

Haha I'm sure we've all been there at some point! I'm glad it's all working for you :)
 
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