Port forwarding

[andicole0]

Am I correct in thinking that I cannot port forward via an EE4G router for a game server?

[XRaySpeX]

@andicole0 : Is that the white mains-powered 4GEE Home Router? Look for a Port Forwarding or a Virtual Server section.

[mikeliuk]

Hi @andicole0 ,

I would recommend that you login to your router to check the IP address on the WAN to see if it is of the form 10.x.x.x or 100.x.x.x

If the WAN IP is of the above form, it will not be routable on the internet so it would be pointless to put in place that port-forward (no unsolicited external traffic could ever hit it).

On the other hand, if the WAN IP matches the IP address you see in an online what-is-my-IP service, you at least have a chance, but I recall a recent post where a 4GEE user did have a routable address but was unable to open ports (presumably ports blocked at the perimeter and away from the customer's router).

[camy252]

I thought it was impossible (or at least very difficult) to port forward on 4GEE because EE uses CGNAT which is like double or triple layer NAT.  I troubleshooted for a weeks to try and open my NAT for online games but I just gave up. 

I just decided I'd rather have high bandwidth and no/limited online gaming with my friends rather than my old landline with its horrendous speed.

Hoping they ditch/fix whole CGNAT and dynamic IP thing with 4G/5G routers as it really does make it a nightmare for online gamers. With 5G becoming a bigger deal, they really should start to take notice of the number of online gamers switching from landline to wireless internet.

[mikeliuk]

Hi @camy252 ,

You can put a port-forward in place but the issue is the WAN will have a non-routable IP address that no one can hit.

Imagine that port-forwarding is like a receptionist who takes calls and puts them through to the right person. If you give that receptionist a phone which has a public number that can receive calls, the receptionist can do their job. CGNAT is like giving that receptionist a phone that will never receive incoming calls and therefore the receptionist will have no incoming calls to pass to anyone.

Due to the fact that no more IPv4 addresses can be allocated (at least on a global basis as they've all been allocated), it's unlikely CGNAT implementations will be reversed.

[camy252]

Thats a good explanation thanks.  Bit frustrating and even more so for people out there who play online games way more than me.  Brings back horrible memories of having to try use Hamachi and GameRanger to play my friends online and still having firewall issues.  So they fixed all these issues only to replace them with the NAT system.

Think internet service providers should be a little kinder to online gamers!