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Most ISPs or Internet Service Providers are notorious for charging too much and not respecting their users’ privacy (among other things). Internet service doesn’t and shouldn’t have to be like this. In this article, I’m going to outline how I cut the cord with my local ISP, reclaimed some of my privacy, and saved over $50/month by rolling out my own network with the help of The Calyx Institute and their awesome internet plans/membership benefits as well as a little network tinkering. But first, a quick introduction to this unique organization.
What is The Calyx Institute?
Founded in 2010 by Nicholas Merrill, The Calyx Institute is a “non-profit education and research organization devoted to studying, testing and developing and implementing privacy technology and tools to promote free speech, free expression, civic engagement and privacy rights on the internet and in the mobile communications industry.” – Calyx Institute
They are member supported and develop many useful services that they give back to the community for free. Some of these services include their Calyx VPN, CanaryWatch, Jabber/XMPP Server, and more. They also host several Tor exit nodes.
If you want to learn more about this amazing organization I recommend you check out their website and/or read Cory Doctorow’s article on them. It was after all because of Cory’s blog post that I approached Nicholas at his Calyx booth in the first place.
The Signup Process
I first met Nicholas at HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) convention XI or XII. I approached his booth and asked him what exactly his company was all about. A few minutes later I was ready to sign up and become a member. The signup process was pretty simple and straight forward. One thing that I found particularly cool and different was their no bullshit attitude towards privacy. It makes sense; privacy is after all a cornerstone of their business model. In the day and age where nothing is private anymore and companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google harvest unfathomable amounts of data on their users and turn it around for profit, it was quite refreshing that my privacy was actually honored.
I paid in cash, provided an email address, a name and a physical address. The information I provided them is the information they know… All in all the signup process took very little time, few questions were asked and frankly, I couldn’t think of many better ways to spend my money. And for such a good cause too.
Say goodbye to your ISP
Once you sign up and obtain your mobile hotspot you’re on your way to some pretty kick-ass internet. At the time of this writing there are 2 device options: the Inseego MiFi 8000 and the Coolpad Surf. The table below compares the two.
| Inseego Mifi 8000 | Coolpad Surf |
|---|---|
| Battery Life: 24 hrs usage, multiple days standby | Battery Life: 5.3 hrs usage, 48 hrs standby |
| Max. # of Connected Devices: 15 Wi-Fi | Max. # of Connected Devices: 10 Wi-Fi |
| Networks supported: 4G/LTE (bands 25, 26, 41, aka “Sprint Spark”) No 3G fallback. LTE only. | Networks supported: 4G/LTE (25, 26, 41) No 3G fallback. LTE only. |
| Max Theoretical Speed: 1200Mbps Down / 150Mbps Up | Max Theoretical Speed: 150Mbps Down / 50Mbps Up |
| Wi-Fi Technology / Frequencies: 802.11 b/g/n/a/ac – Simultaneous 2.4GHz and 5GHz | Wi-Fi Technology / Frequencies: 802.11 b/g/n |
| Dimensions: 4.5″ x 2.8″ x 0.75″ / 5.71 oz | Dimensions: 4.25” x 2.6” x 0.59” / 3.4 oz |
| Ports: 2x TS9 ‘Test Ports’ (not official antenna ports), overrides internal 4×4 MIMO antennas | Cellular Antenna Ports: None |
| USB-C port for charging and USB tethering. | |
| Right port is the primary port, for uploads. | |
| Advanced features: LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation (5x) | |
With hotspot in hand you are now ready to cut ties with your current ISP and decide how you want to utilize your hotspot. There are two main options.
Option 1 – Hotspot Only (typical use case):
This option is the most common and straight forward. All that’s involved is simply using the hotspot as is. If you choose this option things are easier to setup and manage but there are some limitations. The major one being that out of the box the software on the mobile hotspot will only allow between 10 and 15 devices to be concurrently connected to it. Another issue is that if you do have these many devices connected you will notice the hotspot will get really warm and the battery will drain very quickly. I find this option most useful if I’m mobile or traveling and only need to connect a few devices like my laptop, and tablet, or if I’m sharing my hotspot with friends or family while on the road.
While this option is useful, it wasn’t what I had in mind for myself. I wanted to know if there was a way to replace my existing ISP’s equipment (cable modem) with this mobile hotspot and feed it into my existing home/office network(s)? Since I definitely have more that 10 or 15 devices here at home option 1 wasn’t much of an option. My office alone exceeds the maximum number of devices supported. So what to do?
Option 2 – USB Tethering
As it turns out the Inseego Mifi 8000 has an option to tether itself via USB to a router, but not any ole’ router. More on this below. When you tether the hotspot to a router, the router takes on the brunt of the the work and as a result the hotspot has less processing to do. Most of the networking is now managed by the router. This leads to a cooler operating hotspot and a longer lasting/slower draining battery. In general a longer lasting hotspot 🙂
In this scenario the router will do the heavy lifting and provide the rest of the devices on the network ip addresses and internet connectivity. This was what I was looking to accomplish. To not overload my hotspot while at the same time provide my entire house and office all the ip addresses and internet connections I wanted.
Okay, this makes sense but how exactly can we make this work?
Search Engines Are Your Friend
A quick search on the internet brought me to a few websites that provided some, but not all the information I needed to get this setup properly. I stumbled upon some reddit posts about what equipment people had experimented with. Linked from the reddit discussions was a handy post over at https://www.vpnuniversity.com/ as well that provided some useful information. Again, not a complete guide but enough to get me started. There were some doubts as to whether or not the hotspot would overheat or if it would require its own power to stay charged. I’ll answer all of these questions later. At the time I wasn’t sure what my outcome was going to be but I sure thought this would be a fun weekend project. I jumped right in.
After reviewing the information I gathered one last time, I was ready to begin.
What you need
- Mobile Hotspot capable of USB tethering – In my case I had upgraded to the Inseego Mifi 8000 from The Calyx Institute.
- A compatible ASUS router – I picked the AC1900 (RT-AC68U)
Putting it all together
This part of the process required a little tinkering and persistence. The entire setup didn’t take long but if you’ve never done something like this before, it could seem a bit intimidating. Don’t sweat it – it’s much easier than you think.
Step 1: Login to the router.
- Unbox the ASUS router and turn it on. You’ll want to establish a connection to the router so that you can configure it. I always prefer a cable/wired connection when first setting up my networking devices.
- If you have a laptop great! Otherwise get yourself a long enough cable so that you can connect your desktop to it. *Make sure no other networking devices are connected to the computer. You want to ensure that you are connecting to the ASUS router.
- Open up your favorite browser and visit the router’s dashboard. This is usually accomplished by entering http://192.168.1.1 in your browser’s address bar. If that doesn’t work you could try http://192.168.2.1, but it’s most likely the former. Alternatively, you can take a look at your router’s quickstart guide. Sometimes there’s a hostname you can use to get to the dashboard as well. For ASUS routers you can try http://router.asus.com. If you’re unsure which ip address to use, you can always check via the command prompt or terminal. In windows you can get to the command prompt by using the key combo “Windows Key + R”, type “cmd”, and press enter.
- Type “ipconfig” and press enter. Look for where it says “Default Gateway” and use that IP Address. (Your IP Address will most likely be different than mine below).
- If you use a Mac or Linux operating system, open up the terminal and type “ifconfig”, or “ip show address”, or “ipconfig”. One of those should work for most Mac and Linux OS’s
- Now that you’ve got the correct IP address and entered it into your browser, you will be prompted to login. Use the default username and password. Typically, it’s admin/admin. If not, check the quickstart guide.
Step 2: Configure the Router
- Now that we’ve successfully logged into the router, we’re ready to configure it.
- Click on the “WAN” button located on the left column.
- Click to “Enable USB Mode”. The status should say “ON”.
- Below that select the device type. Make sure you pick “USB Modem”.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page and press “Apply”
- Your router may want to reboot at this point. That’s fine.
- Once it reboots, reconnect to your router and select the “WAN” button again.
- Across the top you’ll find a list of tabs. Click on the “Dual WAN” tab.
- Set “Enable Dual WAN” option to “OFF”.
- Set “Primary WAN” to “USB”.
- Press “Apply” and let the router reboot if it wants to.
Step 3: Connect Mobile Hotspot to Router
- We’re almost done! Now that we’ve configured the router to work with our hotspot, it’s time to connect the hotspot to the router.
- Take the USB cable that came with the hotspot and connect it to the hotspot.
- Plug the other end of it into the BLUE, USB 3.0 port on the back of the ASUS router.
- After a few seconds your hotspot will ask you how you intend to use it.
- Select the last option. It will say something along the lines of “USB & Wifi”
Congratulations! You’ve now broken free from the shackles of your local ISP.
Additional Information:
- Once you complete the 3 steps above, you can access your hotspot by visiting http://192.168.1.1, and your router by visiting http://192.168.2.1
- The router will charge your hotspot.
- If your internet stops working but everything seems to be setup correctly, you may need to completely power-cycle your entire network. This can happen from time to time. This is okay. Don’t stress. Reboot all devices and give it a few minutes to come back to life.