OT WiFi Repeater Or ???

My cell phone, Consumer Cellular, company offers a wifi hotspot device
that ties to the phone network only. A one time purchase is required.

It is WiFi only (no USB dongle capability like Sprint has) but capable
of up to 10 (if I remember correctly) simultaneous WiFi connections.

My Consumer Cellular goes through AT&T now since I had problems with the
phone sim that was on T-Mobile. Areas I went to before were not covered
by T-Mobile but are by AT&T. So for free they gave me an AT&T sim card.

Is there a way to expand the area of such a device such that it will
cover all of my house ?

Is there a way to connect it to my isolated home WiFi LAN ?
I would need one "port" to get the home WIFI LAN out on the Internet so
I could see my security cams remotely.

I.E. some WiFi repeater ? Or whatever.

I have WiFi cameras and several PC that add to more than 10.
I do not need high speed.

OT wrote:
My cell phone, Consumer Cellular, company offers a wifi hotspot device
that ties to the phone network only. A one time purchase is required.

It is WiFi only (no USB dongle capability like Sprint has) but capable
of up to 10 (if I remember correctly) simultaneous WiFi connections.

My Consumer Cellular goes through AT&T now since I had problems with the
phone sim that was on T-Mobile. Areas I went to before were not covered
by T-Mobile but are by AT&T. So for free they gave me an AT&T sim card.

Is there a way to expand the area of such a device such that it will
cover all of my house ?

Is there a way to connect it to my isolated home WiFi LAN ?
I would need one "port" to get the home WIFI LAN out on the Internet so
I could see my security cams remotely.

I.E. some WiFi repeater ? Or whatever.

I have WiFi cameras and several PC that add to more than 10.
I do not need high speed.

https://www.consumercellular.com/blo...obile-hotspot/

"The ZTE Mobile Hotspot uses a cellular signal to
create a powerful, 4G LTE wireless internet network
for up to 10 devices."

"Phil Dehnert asks:

... possibility of increasing your 4GB maximum data usage --- [uh, oh]
"

Great. Your 4G service has a "data cap". You will
exhaust that cap in about 2 microseconds, if you
run your collection of IP cameras through it.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Paul

On 5/11/2017 5:00 PM, Paul wrote:
OT wrote:
My cell phone, Consumer Cellular, company offers a wifi hotspot device
that ties to the phone network only. A one time purchase is required.

And usually an additional monthly charge.

It is WiFi only (no USB dongle capability like Sprint has) but capable
of up to 10 (if I remember correctly) simultaneous WiFi connections.

My Consumer Cellular goes through AT&T now since I had problems with
the phone sim that was on T-Mobile. Areas I went to before were not
covered by T-Mobile but are by AT&T. So for free they gave me an AT&T
sim card.

Is there a way to expand the area of such a device such that it will
cover all of my house ?

Is there a way to connect it to my isolated home WiFi LAN ?
I would need one "port" to get the home WIFI LAN out on the Internet
so I could see my security cams remotely.

I.E. some WiFi repeater ? Or whatever.

I have WiFi cameras and several PC that add to more than 10.
I do not need high speed.

The devil is in the details of what you actually wish to accomplish.
You used some words that may or may not make the process more difficult.

Assuming you have a home network that meets all your local needs for
computing
and viewing your cameras, but no internet access.
A key question is whether the cellular hotspot will bridge local
devices or just allow isolated web access. The device may or may not
allow the port forwarding you're gonna need to access cameras on the
web. I expect that crippled hardware provided by cellular
companies won't do that.

I expect you're gonna need a routed bridge between your network
and the hotspot. Consumer devices usually won't do that.
You might have to resort to something like DD-WRT to achieve it.

I did something like that to bridge one end of the house to the other.
Problem with that is that when you shutdown the hotspot, the rest of
the network might get very unhappy, and it might not recover when you
turn the hotspot back on. Configuring it to solve that problem
may create others. You don't want to leave the hotspot
turned on if you don't have unlimited data.

Once you get it set up, what are you gonna do with it?
If you expect to stream several webcams thru your hotspot
to the web and back to your phone, as Paul suggests, you're gonna be using
data at a rate you can't afford on both the phone and the hotspot.
If all you want to do is look at the current image snapshots
infrequently, you may find it affordable.

Personally, I don't like to have stuff directly connected to the
web thru something that costs a lot of money and is mostly out of my
control. Too many opportunities to accidentally leave something streaming
in the background or have your phone wake up for some update
and resume streaming, resulting in data limit issues.

https://www.consumercellular.com/blo...obile-hotspot/


"The ZTE Mobile Hotspot uses a cellular signal to
create a powerful, 4G LTE wireless internet network
for up to 10 devices."

"Phil Dehnert asks:

... possibility of increasing your 4GB maximum data usage ---
[uh, oh]
"

Great. Your 4G service has a "data cap". You will
exhaust that cap in about 2 microseconds, if you
run your collection of IP cameras through it.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Paul

Hi Mike and others. Try this... have you ever heard of an unlocked phone so you are not \lock to your service provider? Here is where you can get one and more detail....
It can also save you Long distance charges....

http://www.phonegroundzero.com




On Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 6:52:18 PM UTC-7, mike wrote:
On 5/11/2017 5:00 PM, Paul wrote:
OT wrote:
My cell phone, Consumer Cellular, company offers a wifi hotspot device
that ties to the phone network only. A one time purchase is required.

And usually an additional monthly charge.

It is WiFi only (no USB dongle capability like Sprint has) but capable
of up to 10 (if I remember correctly) simultaneous WiFi connections.

My Consumer Cellular goes through AT&T now since I had problems with
the phone sim that was on T-Mobile. Areas I went to before were not
covered by T-Mobile but are by AT&T. So for free they gave me an AT&T
sim card.

Is there a way to expand the area of such a device such that it will
cover all of my house ?

Is there a way to connect it to my isolated home WiFi LAN ?
I would need one "port" to get the home WIFI LAN out on the Internet
so I could see my security cams remotely.

I.E. some WiFi repeater ? Or whatever.

I have WiFi cameras and several PC that add to more than 10.
I do not need high speed.

The devil is in the details of what you actually wish to accomplish.
You used some words that may or may not make the process more difficult.

Assuming you have a home network that meets all your local needs for
computing
and viewing your cameras, but no internet access.
A key question is whether the cellular hotspot will bridge local
devices or just allow isolated web access. The device may or may not
allow the port forwarding you're gonna need to access cameras on the
web. I expect that crippled hardware provided by cellular
companies won't do that.

I expect you're gonna need a routed bridge between your network
and the hotspot. Consumer devices usually won't do that.
You might have to resort to something like DD-WRT to achieve it.

I did something like that to bridge one end of the house to the other.
Problem with that is that when you shutdown the hotspot, the rest of
the network might get very unhappy, and it might not recover when you
turn the hotspot back on. Configuring it to solve that problem
may create others. You don't want to leave the hotspot
turned on if you don't have unlimited data.

Once you get it set up, what are you gonna do with it?
If you expect to stream several webcams thru your hotspot
to the web and back to your phone, as Paul suggests, you're gonna be using
data at a rate you can't afford on both the phone and the hotspot.
If all you want to do is look at the current image snapshots
infrequently, you may find it affordable.

Personally, I don't like to have stuff directly connected to the
web thru something that costs a lot of money and is mostly out of my
control. Too many opportunities to accidentally leave something streaming
in the background or have your phone wake up for some update
and resume streaming, resulting in data limit issues.

https://www.consumercellular.com/blo...obile-hotspot/


"The ZTE Mobile Hotspot uses a cellular signal to
create a powerful, 4G LTE wireless internet network
for up to 10 devices."

"Phil Dehnert asks:

... possibility of increasing your 4GB maximum data usage ---
[uh, oh]
"

Great. Your 4G service has a "data cap". You will
exhaust that cap in about 2 microseconds, if you
run your collection of IP cameras through it.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Paul