Remote operation using a Netgear hotspot

Ed K5YZW

I'm planning to move my Flexradio for remote operation to a location that does not have good land-based internet, so I plan to use a hotspot. I am trying out a Netgear Nighthawk M6 Pro, but I have not been successful in port-forwarding it. I wanted to check with the Flex Community to see if anyone has successfully configured a hotspot to access their Flexradio. Thanks, Ed K5YZW

Mike-VA3MW

The first thing to check is to make sure that the Hotspot has an actual WAN address and not a CGNAT address.

Testing if your WAN IP address is behind Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT) involves a few steps that are fairly straightforward. CGNAT is often used by ISPs to manage the limited availability of IPv4 addresses, and it can impact certain types of network activities like hosting servers or peer-to-peer connections. Here’s a simple way to check if you're behind a CGNAT:

1. Check Your IP Address:
   • First, find out the WAN IP address that your router is using. This can usually be seen in the router's web interface under status or network settings.
2. Compare with Public IP:
   • Visit a website like whatismyip.com to see your public IP address. This is the IP address that the rest of the internet sees for your connection.
3. Analyze the IP Address:
   • If the IP address you see on your router matches the one you see on the website, your network is not behind CGNAT.
   • If the IP address on your router is different from the one shown on the website, it's possible you are behind CGNAT. Especially, if the IP address on your router is a private IP address (e.g., starts with 10.x.x.x, 100.64.x.x to 100.127.x.x, 172.16.x.x to 172.31.x.x, 192.168.x.x), it strongly suggests CGNAT usage.
4. Check IP Address Range:
   • IP addresses in the ranges of 100.64.0.0 to 100.127.255.255 are specifically allocated for CGNAT use. If your WAN IP is within this range, your connection is definitely behind CGNAT.
5. Contact Your ISP:
   • If you need confirmation or are experiencing issues that you suspect are due to CGNAT (like difficulty in hosting servers or using certain online services), contact your ISP. They can tell you definitively if they are using CGNAT and discuss potential solutions, such as providing a public IP address if necessary.

Understanding if you're behind CGNAT is crucial as SmartLink will not easily function if the radio is on a CGNAT address.