Home Internet - Port Forwarding not working

Hello T-Mo Subscribers and Support,

I am having the same problem. I love, Love, LOVE T-Mobile and said, "Oh-yeah, sign me up" when Home Internet became available! I really need the NAT Forwarding feature to work, PLEASE!!

Thanks and stay safe and healthy,

Digital Robert

Hello Again T-Mo Subscribers and Support,

I opened a support case with T-Mo Home Internet (regarding NAT Forwarding) and they told me someone would contact me in 72 hours. That was over two weeks ago (and no contact).

I called in again, today, to get an update on my case. The agent seemed to be reading from the notes on this ticket. The take-away seemed to be that further troubleshooting needed to be done (if nothing else testing the SIM or other hardware related issues). No mention of when any follow-up would occur.

I took to Google for more independent research and found this on T-Mo's Web site: (there should be a small screenshot just below)

Just in case the (above) screenshot is missing, here is the text:

"NAT Forwarding

While T-Mobile does not support setting up or using NAT Forwarding, the settings are available."

Here is the link to that Web page:

Interfaz de usuario por Internet: gateway Wi-Fi LTE T-Mobile | Asistencia de T-Mobile

I am now not clear how "more hardware troubleshooting is needed" in light of this publicly stated position of non-support?

I believe home internet service is new for T-Mo and maybe in the future NAT Forwarding will become supported.

Good luck and stay safe and healthy,

Digital Robert

I don’t use this, but nice to see somebody figure it out. prob felt nice being able to see it working. right on :]

reversedbias wrote:

I was able to get port forwarding to work. In my setup I use the T-Mobile Gateway → USG-3P → Home Network. In this case I have a router behind another router. In the home network I have a Plex Media server. Here's the steps I used to get the Plex Media server to talk to devices outside (Internet) the home network.

1. Change the IP address of the T-Mobile gateway from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.2
2. I left the USG-3P address range at 192.168.1.x
3. Enabled port forwarding on the USG-3P so that 32400 would reach my Plex server. Essentially nothing changed on the USG-3P, this was what I had when it was connected to a Comcast modem.
4. On the T-Mobile Gateway I enabled the DMZ and put the USG-3P into it.
5. I disabled all Wifi capability of the T-Mobile Gateway, and only used a single LAN connection directly into the USG-3P.
6. I disabled ALL firewall settings on the T-Mobile Gateway. I figured this is okay because the only outlet is directly into my USG-3P router that has all it's firewall enabled. Again, all Wifi is disabled on the T-Mobile Gateway and the only outlet is a LAN port directly into the USG-3P which firewalls my home network.
7. I set the virtual server routing on the T-Mobile Gateway for port 32400 to point to the USG-3P.

After that I was able to successfully get devices on the external Internet to talk to my Plex server. Logically it seemed that I would only either need to enable DMZ or Virtual Server, and it seemed like I shouldn't have to disable all the T-Mobile Firewalls, but it wouldn't work unless I did all the above steps. Again, I would not recommend this unless you have a dual router situation, you disable Wifi on the T-Mobile router, and you place your entire home network behind a second router that has the proper Firewall protections.

I have the exact setup (even the firewall USG) as you and it's not working. 

Could you expound on step 2? Are you saying the wan on the USG is 192.168.1.x? I think the default is 192.168.1.130. 

What if I may ask is your internal IP range behind the USG ? 

Otherwise I have setup the same way you did yet I still can't get traffic through. This is a deal breaker so I am hopeful I can get this to work.

I wish they would give us bridge mode, but this setup should still work.

Anyway, appreciate the help. I called support and they are told to skip NAT and are not trained so they can't help.

I have to say I agree.  Everything was working perfectly with a different LTE modem I had connected to my EdgeRouter X.  I have extensive home automation.  I saw that there is no bridge modem for this "you have to take everything except nothing" all-in-one from TMobile, so just plugged my router into the LAN port and nothing worked.  After extensive looking around, I was just stuck.  I took the router out and tried to get the port forwarding all done in the all-in-one from TMobile.  Some things work, but none of my home automation (through hassio if anyone knows that) is completely broken.  Now "Alexa" doesn't know any of my lights, my heaters, my Ring lights, nothing.  I have to manually turn things on and off and I don't see a way around it. And I take it we can't use our own modem?  Speeds are great, but this looks like it's meant for those who know nothing and can only handle a plug and play internet.

Its not the internet unless you have a public IP address. Its a walled garden. ISPs went thru giving up on 100% NAT connections a decade ago. I really hope  T-Mobile fixes this soon as it is otherwise a very nice service.

I have the same issue as others. I'm running an extensive home automation setup and need a public IP at the edge where my home network  meets the Internet.

I've even tried to add a AAAA record for the supposedly public IPV6 address and that doesn't even work.  Guess I'll give TMO a try to see if they can resolve the issue of not being able to contact from outside my network for many things.

Yeah, just got the service activated. While loving the speed (better than my spectrum 200/20mbps in Los Angeles area) but port forwarding not working is killing me. My plex only works at 720p from outside, at least it's working. But I'd like a complete control for my network. If anyone knows any cell router (hope 5G ready) that can do more than what T-Mobile is offering, please share. 😆

Something you guys might look at if you want port forwarding bad enough. https://www.openmptcprouter.com/

For those that got this working?  My biggest question is that since there is no normal "public ip address - ipv4".  The wan ip address you are getting for your router is not the public ip address.  The wan ip address is a private T-Mobile ip address which I believe all of the LTE suppliers are doing (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon etc).  Unless you are getting a TRUE Public IPV6 ip address and getting that to work I don't see how you are getting it to work.

Someone ask about Synology Quick Connect.  I believe that the Synology Router and/or NAS are creating a tunnel between you local device in the Synology QC servers so when you go to the QC Servers it already has a private tunnel setup.  But this is why you can do anything else with the QC URL like VPN / FTP / WEB/ etc. because you do not have a real ip address.

I think I will review IPV6 options but really hope they (all LTE providers) get this resolved soon for Home Internet Use.  I understand not for phones but for home internet this is needed.

This may be called CGNAT or Carrier Grade NAT where there is multiple NAT’s between the public internet and you home router.