Slate ax1800 and Hotspot

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi all,

Apologies, messed up my first post and repeating here.

Just purchased the Slate ax1800 router and am trying to get it to work with the Solis 5g hotspot that has a T-Mobile sim card and gets 5G speeds. Connecting Slate to the hotspot via repeater mode. Updated the firmware to the latest.

When connected to the slate wi-fi my download speeds are 3 Mbps or less, and upload is anywhere from 10-20 Mbps, which seems really odd.

When connected directly to the hotspot I get the usual speeds of 70-80Mbps. I have confirmed this is purely a router issue, as I have connected the router to my home wifi and get the same slow results. Have also tried 5 vs 2.4GHz on the router and hotspot.

Not sure where to go from here. Are there some settings I need to configure? Wonder if it’s the hotspot itself? I did use usb tethering, usb-c on the hotspot, to the usb-a on the router. It did seem to bump up the speeds by around 1 Mbps. Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you!

2

Are you sure you tried 5G and also tried to repeater your home wifi?

No way to only have 3Mbps only!

3

You are correct! I apologize, I thought I was getting those slow speeds with my home wi-fi network as well, but I was wrong. So when the Slate is connected to my home wi-fi, I get the normal speeds, it works. It’s when it is connected to the Solis hotspot I’m having issues.

Currently, I’m getting an No Internet Connection error when connected to the Slate wireless network. This is with the Slate connected to the Solis hotspot via repeater mode. Should I try a different Network mode?

Appreciate the help, at least I’ve narrowed it down to the hotspot itself, thanks again.

4

I think I might know what the issue is. The Solis has the option to use a virtual or card SIM. I’m wondering if the router is trying to go through the virtual SIM settings? As I said earlier, I have the hotspot using a SIM card, but wonder if the router for some reason is grabbing the virtual card settings?

Update:
I switched the hotspot to use the virtual/eSIM card, and my speeds are great. So it’s definitely something to do with the physical card and the hotspot settings. Does anyone know how to configure the settings to use the proper SIM card?

5

Only one sim can work at a time right?

So when using the real SIM card, when connecting your phone directly to the hotspot it is fast, while using repeater with the router it is slow?

Pls double confirm that.

For the no internet problem can you make sure the repeater is connected?

I suspect that it is ttl settings.

6

Yes only one SIM card can be used at a time. So either the physical SIM card, or the eSIM card.

You are correct, when connected directly to the hotspot, and the hotspot is using the physical SIM card, my speeds are good. It’s when the hotspot is using the physical SIM card, and I connect to the hotspot with the router via repeater mode, that my speeds are slow.

I confirmed that the repeater is connected, I always have the admin page opened while testing the speeds via the SpeedTest app.

Thank you again for your help.

7

Let me know if you need anymore information. Or do you think I need to reach out to T-Mobile and see what settings the router should be using?

Update:
Quick question, could it be T-Mobile detecting the router and blocking, throttling, internet access because of the router? Just trying to think of any other possibilities.

I contacted the hotspot device company, Solis, and they confirmed that the settings for either the eSIM or physical SIM are the same. Not sure if this helps at all.

8

Here is a breakdown of all the scenarios as well:

Problem Connection Setup:

  1. Hotspot using T-Mobile physical SIM Card > Connected to Router with 5GHz Wi-fi > Router in Repeater mode > unusable download speeds of 3Mbps or less, upload speeds are anywhere from 1Mbps to 20Mbps
  • I get the same poor results if using 2.4GHz or 5GHz

No Problem Connection Setup:

  1. Hotspot using T-Mobile physical SIM Card > NO ROUTER > Connected directly to iPad and/or iPhone via 5GHz Wi-fi> Great speeds
  2. Hotspot using eSIM Card > Connected to Router with 5GHz Wi-fi > Router in Repeater mode > Great speeds
  3. Hotspot using eSIM Card > NO ROUTER > Connected directly to iPad and/or iPhone via 5GHz Wi-fi> Great speeds
  4. Home Network > Connected to Router with 5GHz Wi-fi > Router in Repeater mode > Great speeds
  • I get the same good results if using 2.4GHz or 5GHz
9

Can you try set up ttl for the repeater interface?

Try this in ssh of the router

iptables -t mangle -A POSTROUTING -o wlan-sta0 -j TTL --ttl-set 64
10

Thank you, the command is giving this error,
iptables v1.8.7 (legacy): unknown option “–ttl-set”

11

Sorry for this trouble taken. Please try these command one by one:

opkg update
opkg install iptables-mod-ipopt
iptables -t mangle -I POSTROUTING -o wlan-sta0 -j TTL --ttl-set 65

Then check if it works or not.

1 Like
12

Hi there after updating and entering the following command,

iptables -t mangle -I POSTROUTING -o wlan-sta0 -j TTL --ttl-set 65

It just goes to another line, there is no indication that it is changed, just making sure this is ok? Also, is there a way to confirm that the TTL was set to 65?

My download speeds are still very slow, less than 1Mbps, but upload speeds are around 20Mbps.

Thanks again!

13

Hi quick update,

I purchased a new router, the Inseego MiFi X PRO 5G M3000 for T-Mobile.

Having the same issues and have definitely pin pointed the issue is the Slate axt1800 router.

Hotspot > Connected directly with iPad Air 5th generation > Consistently great speeds, no issues.

Hotspot > Slate Router > Intermittent, sometimes it works, but then it stops working. Get either no internet at all, or really slow speeds, around 3Mbps or less download, and either 20Mbps upload or less than 1Mbps.

I just did a test a few minutes ago.

Connected to the hotspot, ran speedtest, great speeds.
Connected to the router, great speeds.
Switched back to hotspot. Great speeds.
Switched back to router. Slower speeds.
Switched back to hotspot. Great speeds.
Switch back to router. No internet.
Back to hotspot. Great speeds.
Back to router. Still no internet.

Please let me know if you need any additional information. I also did a firmware reset before running these tests. Firmware version is 4.5.16.

Thank you

14

Hi another update,

So in my hotspot settings I was able to enable IP Passthrough. This seems to be working as I’m not getting slow download speeds when connected via wifi to the router. I have completed a number of speedtests with success.

The only thing I’m seeing that is odd is that my upload speeds are around half of the hotspot upload speed. Scenarios below.

Hotspot > Directly connected via wifi with iPad > 40Mbps upload speed
Hotspot > Router > Connected via wifi with iPad > 20Mbps upload speed

The download speeds are pretty much the same which is around 600Mbps. Is this to be expected? Is there a way to make the upload speeds match the hotspot?

Thank you!

15

I think I figured it out.

I switched the network mode on the slate to Access Point and everything seems to be working great. Getting the same speeds when connected directly to the hotspot or the router wifi.

I’ll keep you posted if it stays stable.

Thank you

16

Well did a reboot and restart on the router and hotspot. Now it’s barely working, speeds around 10Mbps for both download and upload.

17

Ok hopefully this is it.

Router in Access Point mode
Hotspot settings, enabled IP Passthrough

These two settings seem to be working, even after restarting both devices. Does any of this make sense?

Thank you

18

Can you try 4.6 snapshot.

In repeater mode we have some more settings which you may try.

Set ttl and hl to 65
Set mtu to 1428 or 1400

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