Wireguard on Huawei B818-263 or B628

[Brock]

I am currently on a DSL connection and interested in switching to a 4G connection. Available options locally are Eir and Vodafone, with B818-263 routers (both) and B628 (Eir). I've seen a suggestion that Eir's B628 is not a new v2 device but a rebadged and cheaper B618 and think I'd like to know what it is before proceeding. Anyone know?

Am also keen to discover if there's any reason any of these wouldn't work with Wireguard (connecting remotely to a Wireguard VPN server running on a raspberry pi, with port 51820 forwarded). I've got Wireguard working without any issue on my DSL connection but was't able to get it working on a friend's Eir B818-263. There's no double NAT involved. I disabled ALG (SIP capabilities). Not sure what else I can try. Ideas? Happy to hear if others have this working. To be clear, my concern is not running a Wireguard server on the router, just remote connectivity back to the network -- to save opening ports I'd rather not expose, use my own DNS server (pihole with unbound) etc.

[Seán]

Eir originally provided the B818 with their mobile broadband plans, but has since went with the lower end B628. From what I'm aware of, the only difference between the B618 and B628 is the upload speed capability. Both the B618 and B628 models are limited to 2 carrier aggregation, such as B20+B3. The B818 can aggregate a lot more carriers, so if the Eir mast in your area operates on 3 or more bands (e.g. B20 + B1 + B3), it can aggregate 3 of them for potentially faster speed.

Eir's 5G plan includes Huawei CPE Pro 2 (costs €50 more and higher plan cost at €45/month), which has the same carrier aggregation capabilities as the B818, but with 5G. You could then switch to the cheaper 4G plan after the 12 month contract. It does not have any antenna sockets however, so if the indoor signal is poor, there's no easy way to connect an antenna to it.

Unfortunately, both Eir and Vodafone do not provide a public IP address on their cellular network, which means there's no way to allow incoming connections. Both assign internal IP addresses to routers in the 10.x.x.x or 100.x.x.x range. The Three network still provides a public IP address that supports incoming connections, although in some areas you need to contact Three to get a public IP address.

[Brock]

Eir originally provided the B818 with their mobile broadband plans, but has since went with the lower end B628.  From what I'm aware of, the only difference between the B618 and B628 is the upload speed capability.  Both the B618 and B628 models are limited to 2 carrier aggregation, such as B20+B3.  The B818 can aggregate a lot more carriers, so if the Eir mast in your area operates on 3 or more bands (e.g. B20 + B1 + B3), it can aggregate 3 of them for potentially faster speed. 

Eir's 5G plan includes Huawei CPE Pro 2 (costs €50 more and higher plan cost at €45/month), which has the same carrier aggregation capabilities as the B818, but with 5G. You could then switch to the cheaper 4G plan after the 12 month contract.  It does not have any antenna sockets however, so if the indoor signal is poor, there's no easy way to connect an antenna to it.

Unfortunately, both Eir and Vodafone do not provide a public IP address on their cellular network, which means there's no way to allow incoming connections.  Both assign internal IP addresses to routers in the 10.x.x.x or 100.x.x.x range.  The Three network still provides a public IP address that supports incoming connections, although in some areas you need to contact Three to get a public IP address.

Thanks for the info on the routers.

I have a static IP on my DSL connection from Vodafone. I used a dynamic DNS service (freeddns.org) with my friend's router. Worked OK behind my router.