Usb tether

[KILLERDOG]

Hi Everyone, ok, so my internet is unstable lately and i was wonder about this dual wan mode. I have a Xiaomi lite 5g NE, and i tried to usb tether to my rt-ax88u using the latest stable merlin firmware. I can not get the router to use my mobile phones data/tether. I can tether my old wiley fox mobile phone but not my new Xiaomi. Any one know why or what im doing wrong. ? Thx guys...

 

[KILLERDOG]

Oh , forgot to say my wileyfox is lte/4g and my xiaomi is 3g,4g,5g. Does this make a difference ?

 

[Patrick9876]

There is a page here listing compatible devices. I think most devices on the list are USB modems rather than phones, but I don't know for sure. Many phones (Android or not) work using the "Android phone" setting in the USB Tethering config. I've found no mention of the level of Android emulation needed. I have no idea what the interface specs are for the supported devices but I assume there are devices not mentioned in the list that use the same protocol as those listed.

 

[KILLERDOG]

I will check that out, thanks. My old wileyfox mobile phone works fine but my new Xiaomi 11 Lite 5g NE just wont usb tether but it WILL ethernet tether

 

[Patrick9876]

I just looked up both Wileyfox tethering and Xiaomi 11 tethering. Both have Android USB tethering support so should work with the router. There are several web page tutorials for enabling USB tethering on the Xiaomi 11 but most really show setting up a hot spot rather than USB tethering. In fact, at least one shows the USB Tether option greyed out.

Some phones (such as a Nokia dumbphone that I have) require the USB cable to be connected to the router (or PC or whatever) before the USB tether option is enabled.

A more dismal possibility: Some cell providers disable the tethering option on some phones even though the phone's operating system supports it ... and even though they allow tethering on other phones. (AT&T in the US is guilty of that.)

 

[KILLERDOG]

Strange thing is my wiley fox usb cable tethers just fine and shares connection using bluetooth and hot spot, its my new mobile that does support usb cable tethering... Both using the same sim card....3 mobile let you tether, stream as much as you want. I just switch the sim into each phone for testing purposes..

 

[Patrick9876]

The behavior I was mentioning may not apply to you, but it isn't tied to the sim card. It seems to be some kind of "provisioning" that happens between cell provider the the phone's operating system. An old dumbphone I had died so I bought a replacement - a Cingular Flip IV - at an AT&T store - a phone that AT&T obviously supported. USB tethering was supported in the operating system (some version of KaiOS) but the option was greyed out. So I bought a Noika 6300 (another dumbphone that also uses KaiOS) from Amazon, moved the sim card from the Cingular to the Nokia, and USB tethering worked. It's stated somewhere in the KaiOS doc that options can be disabled by the cell service provider. I assume that's also true of smartphones.

 

[KILLERDOG]

Oh ok, right. I can use my new phone to ethernet tether, that works just fine. But i have to use a usb-c ethernet powered hub ....

 

[Scottp]

Replying to an old thread, but.. I have just been trying to get this working without success. I have a Xiaomi Mi 11 - I plug this into my linux computer and it just works when I enable USB tethering. It's important to know "USB Modem" is not the same, modern Androids do USB tethering through ethernet emulation. I tried all the options on my ZenWIFI AX (RT-AX95) - dual WAN, changing primary to USB, load balancing mode. At no point does it do the DHCP to connect. Nothing in the logs. Engineers are changing the pole outside my house, this was really an exercise in what I could do with and extended outage