Forum Discussion
Ping router
Hi
Is it possible to ping a $g router that has a smarty sim in ?
Router is connected to internet and has correct APN, can browse etc, have enabled respond to ping on WAN interface and even tested with firewall disabled but I cannot get a response to a ping.
Thanks
7 Replies
Oh botheration. Is there no way around this? I just subscribed to SMARTY to use as a backup internet service but if I can't get a publicly routable IP address it's useless to me.
What should I do? Just throw the SIM in the bin when it arrives and not activate it?
Yes, there are a few workarounds - they are right at the end of my post.
If you want to cancel and you've already paid for a month of service then you'll want to leave the SIM unactivated and start a web chat with Smarty support to ask for a refund.
If you've ordered a SIM without having already paid for a month of service, yeah, you can just bin it.
Not familiar with TailScale or Zero Tier.
Essentially I run several services on my home network that I need to access externally, there are a few web services (OpenWISP, Home Assistant, Unifi Console) then also I have several VPN end-points that devices on the web connect back to, (these are network devices that I manage for a couple of local charities). These are currently all setup to use DDNS via AWS Route53. So I don't need a static IP, just a public one.
Will TailScale work for that? How do I enable it?
No it isn't. In common with most other mobile networks, Smarty uses CG-NAT (carrier-grade network address translation) meaning you share an external IP address with other users, and it is not possible to make an incoming connection to your router from the internet.
The only UK mobile network which allows you to do this is Three, using the 3internet APN (note that if you set that APN on Smarty, you may get internet connectivity but your connection will still be CG-NAT-ed).
Depending on what you are trying to achieve, you may be able to use a workaround, for example, a service like Tailscale or ZeroTier. If you are wanting to run a web server on the standard ports you could use a Cloudflare tunnel.
