Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Can you use Port Forwarding with the USB Dongle?

  • 12-03-2010 7:49am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18


    Hi,

    Wondering if anyone can help me here with this one...

    For the past few years I have been using the Eircom Broadband 3Mb package with their standard Netopia router (rebranded Eircom).

    To access some applications that i have running at home I setup port forwarding on the router so that i can run the applications while on the road.

    (Basically I forwarded port 8050 and port 37777 on the router and pointed them to a PC that I have at home running the application)

    I have been doing this now for a while and have not had any problems, but now with the more common USB stick wireless broadband from vendors like "3" you do not get a router, just a small USB stick allowing broadband access.

    The question I have is, can port forwarding be setup with this wireless broadband, I dont see how it is possible when I dont actually have a router?

    Any help would be appreciated as everytime I ask technical support from "3" they only tell me that they dont block any ports and they cant seem to understand the question... can I port forward using the USB stick wireless broadband?

    Thanks in advance.... ;-)


Comments

  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    You wouldn't need to port forward because you'll have a directly assigned public IP address with the dongle. If 3 are telling the truth about not blocking ports then it should just work.

    You would only have to port-forward if you were sharing the dongle connection Mi-Fi style.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18 khye


    baz8080 wrote: »
    You wouldn't need to port forward because you'll have a directly assigned public IP address with the dongle. If 3 are telling the truth about not blocking ports then it should just work.

    You would only have to port-forward if you were sharing the dongle connection Mi-Fi style.

    Hi Thanks for the reply...

    You still have to forward the ports to some device on your network, if I have 4 PCs on the home network, you have to specify which one you want port 8050 forwarded to..

    Is that not correct?


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Unless you have a 3G router how are the other devices in your house going to connect to the internet? Wireless is not the same as 3G so the other machines you have will not automatically pick up the connection.

    I guess you could share the internet connection on the machine that has the dongle and in that case it is that machine that will be acting as the router.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18 khye


    I have the PCs connected using a gigabit switch and sharing the connection across the LAN, using the PC which has the USB stick as the gateway....

    They can all connect to the web without issue, its just coming in from outside thats the problem...

    Would they offer a 3G router instead of the USB stick or would that be a different service completely?

    Thanks again for the replies..much appreciated!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,375 ✭✭✭kmick


    I think what you are talking about is network address translation. I dont think that can be done via a 3 dongle easily. You could use one of your PC's as a gateway and share the internet connection via that PC but its tricky and those dongles are so slow it would be a poor connection.
    Check out ICS (Internet connection sharing). You will still need some sort of router for this to route the traffic via the various machines on your network.

    Its basically a horrible solution unless you have no other choice.


  • Advertisement
  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The setup that you have now is probably fine but there are 3g routers out there too. I think I read recently that 3 were going to offer one but I'm not sure about the dates.

    In your setup the PC with the dongle attached is effectively the router. You'll need to find out if you can port-forward with your OS. I haven't done it myself so I don't know what it involves but this looked promising (figures j & k)

    (Windows)
    http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1056226.html

    Edit: 3 are selling them now.

    http://www.three.ie/broadband/mifi.htm


Advertisement