Looking for a solution to get around T-Mobile Home Internet 464XLAT

AG4Q

Everything at my home seems to work very well over T-Mobile Home internet, including VPNs. The only exception is that Smartlink does not work. I am looking at two VPN approaches:

Option 1) (OpenVPN and CloudConnexa) build a layer 3 VPN to tunnel from the home network to a cloud service that to provide internet access for the flex radio to get around the T-Mobile network. I anticipate then registering the radio with Smartlink through the cloud IP gateway and then SmartSDR on IOS would discover the radio IP address via Smartlink. I am assuming Smartlink would provide authentication and be acting very much as a DDNS to locate the radio. Does this approach sound plausible? Is this how Smartlink works?

Option 2) build a VPN for the home network with a VPN client installed on the IOS device. If I build a Layer 2 VPN, the flex radio and and SmartSDR IOS client will appear as if they are on the same network and SmartSDR should be able to receive the directed broadcast from the radio and communicate directly to the radio. However I might only be able to build a Layer 3 VPN and my understanding is that the flex radio broadcast messages will not traverse a Layer 3 network. So this leads me to ask how is the broadcast handled with Smartlink?

Is there information in the Flex Radio API that I have not located that describes how the broadcast packets are handled for a Smartlink connection?

I appreciate any information or guidance. I am interested in finding a remote connection solution and also in learning the networking details required to acheive a stable solution.

Thank You,

Randy Nash, AG4Q

AG4Q

Digging more into the API and reading documentation again, I am beginning to answer some of my own questions. The direct broadcast and discovery are only used on the local network and that the radio sends a separate UDP stream to the WAN for Smartlink connected radios (The waterfalls and meters are which clients subscribe to are not sent via multicast). I expect I should be able to use a Layer 3 VPN if I can connect with Smartlink through a cloud IP gateway. I will be experimenting with Option 1 above.