Problems with Alcatel L800 4g/LTE

[Silentmonkey]

I am trying to setup a 4G connection as a backup route to the FTTC connection. Having just spent over 3 hours get an Alcatel l800 working with the 7800DXL I now have a problem. Do I spend additional hours reconfiguring my network or bin the Alcatel l800 and try another device.

The problem is that my LAN network is already configured with 192.168.1.x. It has 4 printers, 2 managed switches and an SBS2011 server with fixed IP's and 18 clients via DHCP already configured. It will be a pain to reconfigure that lot. The Alcatel l800 acts as a router and is hard coded with 192.168.1.1 and set then network driver bound to the USB port on the 7800DXL to 192.168.1.62. So in order to access it in failover the LAN has to be something other than 192.168.1.x

So my question is:

Does anyone know of another USB 4G/LTE device that doesn't act as a router, has configurable IP settings or uses a different network address to 192.168.1.x or better still a way to change the IP's used by the l800

Thanks in advance
A frustrated silentmonkey

[BadMelonFarmer]

I feel your pain

I have the L800 and I contacted Alcatel to see if there was a way of changing the IP address on the dongle... The answer was an official "Non" (Alcatel is French)

So you will either have to reconfigure your local network to a different network range (a pain) .... Or use another device.

I am currently using an Huawei E5372 which I bought from a Three store on PAYG with 1GB loaded for £89...it is a MIFI unit that will work over USB as a dongle... The idea is that I leave it plugged in at home, but when I go away on holiday... Trips etc I just unplug it and take it away... No facing about with sims etc.

And you can change the IP address of the unit to be what you want.

I bought it with the intention of unlocking it for a couple of quid ... But it was already unlocked and I have successfully used it on EE 4G as well as 3.

Also has the benefit that you can add external antennas if you wish.

[Silentmonkey]

Thanks for that. Looks like it might be worth junking the Alcatel unit an swapping for the Huawei E5372

I take it the external aerial is for the inbuilt WiFi and not the LTE connection.

From your experience does the 7800dxl show the LTE connection and signal strength information from the Huawei E5372?

[BadMelonFarmer]

The external antenna option is for the Mobile signal and not the WiFi. ... although I tried a good quality antenna and it made absolutely no difference at all LOL ... so I sent it back, not paying £100 for something that made no difference.

You may have better luck if you decide to go down the antenna route, but I have just moved the unit to another room where the signal is a lot better.

regarding the status in the router GUI ... yes the info does appear in there, unlike the alcatel .... however... the Signal displayed in the Billion GUI did not seem to reflect the GUI on the device display. ... but hey no big deal ... and it might have just been coincidence.

[Silentmonkey]

I've just discovered that a third party has installed a client server app and the clients are configured to talk to the DB on the server using its IP address not name!!!! Looks like the Alcatel l800 is defiantly being replaced.

I'll give the Huawei E5372 a go and let you all know how it goes. Interesting that the external antenna is for the mobile signal.

[BadMelonFarmer]

LOL hard coding IP addresses, bless them.

Hope the E5372 works well for you too... I could not wait to get rid of the Alcatel.

[Silentmonkey]

Hi BadMelonFarmerh

I need a little more advice from you please.

I have the HUAWEI E5372 but I have a problem which I hope you can help with.

The 6GB Data SIM I got with the Alcatel L800 has not yet been registered or activated and when I use this SIM with L800 connected to my laptop with all other networks disabled it connects to EE 4G network and when I fire up a browser it automatically take me to the EE landing page to register and activate it.

When I do the same with the HUAWEI device I get 404 Page could not be found. The E5372 is connected via USB to my laptop and connects to the EE 4G network with good strength.

If I place my activated phones SIM in the E53272 unit it works fine and I can browse the internet.

Can you confirm that in your experience an un-activated SIM should take you to the Network Providers landing page when used with the E5372 device. My worry is that when using this as a backup device for the FTTC connection and should that connection fail I will not be able to top this card up online and use it.

[Nickkbi]

I found this post yesterday when I was trying to solve the same issue with the L800. Unfortunately it wasn't clear to me what the resolution was.
The support team at Billion UK were great, and i got the answer as follows in less than 24 hours.

To resolve the issue, you need to change the routers subnet to eg 192.168.2.254 or 192.168.0.254 as the L800 works like a router, and issues the WAN side of the Billion with a internal IP address within the default subnet of the Billion eg 192.168.1.161.

So changing the router IP address to different subnet should do the job.

I did this and changed router IP to 192.168.2.1 with problem resolved.