Home Internet Static IP

ArthurZey wrote:

 

• If you have your own router, it might be tempting to set the Inseego FX2000 to “IP Passthrough” mode (under Settings → Advanced → LAN), so that your own router gets the public IP address (and you avoid being double-NATted), doing so will prevent you from being able to access the Inseego FX2000 configuration website (since it won’t have its own IP address to access via your browser), and you’ll lose access to some useful diagnostic information.
  So I recommend against IP Passthrough, instead opting for putting your own router in the Inseego FX2000’s DMZ (under Settings → Advanced → Firewall), and to do so, you’ll probably want to configure your own router to use a static IP address on the Inseego FX200’s LAN subnet.
  From a performance perspective, I have it on good authority that the biggest introduction of latency is the mere fact of there being a physical device, rather than the double-NATting itself. Putting your own router in the DMZ should address any of the functional downsides of double-NATting.

 

This is incorrect. You can safely put the FX2000 into the "IP Passthrough" mode and be able to acces the Inseego FX2000 configuration website. the FX2000 doesn't "lose" the IP address assigned to its LAN interface when it's set to the "IP Passthrough" mode. What it "loses" is the DHCP server and the ability to route traffic from its LAN interface to its WAN interface and vice versa). Therefore, if you plug a computer into the FX2000 Ethernet port when the FX2000 is already in the "IP Passthrough" mode, the computer won't get a DHCP lease from the FX2000. However, if you assign a computer a static IP address from the same iP subnet that the FX2000 LAN interface is on, you can HTTP into the LAN IP address that you set on the FX2000 (or the one it came with by default) from the connected computer and administer it the same way you would administer it when it's in the "router" mode rather than the "modem"  mode (with "IP Passthrough" enabled). 

Additionally, if you plug a router in the FX2000's Ethernet port after the FX2000 is set to the "IP Passthrough" mode (which is effectively a "modem" mode or "bridge" mode), you can get to the IP assigned to the LAN interface of the FX2000 as long as your router is set to forward private IP ranges out of its WAN interface. So, you would just HTTP from any computer that's connected to your router (via Wi-Fi or cable) to the IP address assigned to the LAN interface of the FX2000, and you will see the same administrative web portal. When you log in, you can navigate through the administrative web portal of the FX2000 and you can change it back to the router mode (if you so desire).. 

One more thing. The FX2000 is a very underpowered device from all perspectives. It has a weak Wi-Fi cheap, it has no external antennas for Wi-Fi or even for 5G/4G (on T-Mobile bands its external antennas don't work, so it's shipped by T-Mobile without external antennas). But, even its CPU is very weak. So, when the FX2000 is in the router mode, it throttles the throughput if the throughput is above 500 Mbps.

On my T-Mobile Small Business Internet, I’m getting about 710 Mbps download (RSRP -83 dBm) to about 770 (RSRP -77 dBM). 

With RSRP being -83 dBM, I can only get about 490 Mbps download when the FX2000 is set to the router mode, but I can get up to 710 Mbps download when I switch the FX2000 to the "modem" mode (aka "bridge" mode, aka "IP Passthrough") with the same RSSR of -83 dBM. So, I believe the throttling point is just under 500 Mbps.

By switching the FX2000 to the "modem" (aka "bridge" aka "IP Passthrough") mode, you can also reduce the latency of your connection by a few milliseconds, reduce the jitter (the variations in latency, which is what kills video conferencing and even VoIP calls), and you may also be able to reduce the error rate because the FX2000 would be functioning as a pure modem rather than also using its weak CPU for routing packets. And, of course, you will eliminate the "double NAT" issue if you switch the FX2000 to the "IP Passthrough" (aka "modem" aka "bridge") mode.