Nighthawk M6 Pro Mobile Hotspot (AT&T MR6500) & Incoming Connections

[dfilip]

I am seriously considering purchasing the Nighthawk M6 Pro 5G Mobile Hotspot (AT&T) and putting it in front of a server in my basement, to accept incoming web (ports 80 and 443) connections.  My server is on a (NETGEAR GS108E) Ethernet switch and has a static IP.

Don't worry about it being in the basement - it is close enough to a window to be able to hang a MIMO antenna outside (as the MR6500 supports an external antenna, and where I would hang the antenna I am getting 4 bars of 5G (albeit measured with an iPhone).

So, if I connect the Ethernet port of the Nighthawk 5G hotspot to the Ethernet switch, can I do port forwarding to my server on the same switch for those ports (80 & 443)?

I guess I am trying to confirm whether AT&T will permit incoming connections to a hotspot (e.g., most ISPs block port 25 (SMTP), but will they permit 80 and 443?), and if so, whether the MR6500 can route incoming connections on those ports to my server?

I have tried asking AT&T wireless support, and gotten absolutely nowhere with them (one person told me it would accept Internet connections the US, but not from other countries (?!) ... another told me that they couldn't guarantee it and I should try it but first check the return policy because it may not work ... another could only say that 5G was really, really fast and supported multiple devices ... but I could not get through the idea of incoming connections and port forwarding to any of them).

Does anyone in the community know if this would work?

Thanks,

Dave.

 

[dfilip]

Although I couldn't find anything about port forwarding -- a pretty standard feature on most NETGEAR routers -- regarding the Nighthawk M6 Pro 5G hotspot, I did manage to find reference to setting up a DMZ.

So is that potentially my solution for this?  A DMZ infers incoming connections, and I have a spare BR500 router, so potentially could I do something like this (as I may have said previously, I want to use the Ethernet port of the MR6500 and turn off WiFi entirely):

[Public Internet] ==> [MR6500] ==Ethernet==>[BR500]==Ethernet==>[Computer]

I'm not concerned about using the BR500 for my firewall -- I have another one on my network and I am very familiar with that router -- so based on the DMZ feature, it sounds like this should work?  Any problems with this approach?

Since the MR6500 is something like $800, I want to make sure that this works before I make the purchase.

Thanks,

Dave.

[schnellmedic]

Its carrier grade nat so dont expect a public address - on AT&T residential service at least.  Maybe if you get a cradlepoint business sim with static addressing and swap the sims...