I think that those who can get 0.8Gbps from one modem don’t need mptcp.
What would be a real-world use-case for such a 5G gateway?
So you need 6 SIM cards/contracts - I guess this might not be that cheap? Or is it to circumvent carrier data caps - so you get some kind of prepaid data and just get 6 cheap prepaid SIM cards?
OpenMPTCProuter permit to aggregate multiple Internet connections with the help of Multipath TCP (MPTCP).
Yes I read that, but why would you aggregate six 5G connections? I‘m really curious, as this is very uncommon (nobody) here where I live, so I‘m really interested how this feature is actually used - it must make sense in some countries or for special use cases?
I see, wow 16 modems! So you do it, because there is no ISP providing wired access (cable, fiber, DSL, …) in your area? In my area, 16 modems = 16 contracts would cost 16x 20.- EUR = 320 EUR per month, so this would be way more expensive than wired access (30 EUR per month) or even satellite, even a single 5G connection would deliver 1G up/down, so there is some data/bandwidth cap per contract? It is really interesting, how the economics of internet is different in all regions on Earth…
OpenMPTCProuter currently support to aggregate up to 8 connections (or 8 IPs in fact). I’ve made a patch to support more but I don’t have so many connections to test…
BPI-R4 and BPI-R4 PoE are supported in v0.62 RC1 (I hope to be able to release v0.62 soon…)
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please add PoE, that would really make sense instead of tons of RJ45
This is a special use case, specifically for 5G aggregation,
We will release another product that supports multiple 2.5G RJ45 and POE PD.
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It have no sense, cell tower has limited capacity.
Hi sinovoip,
When do you expect this board to be available?
I’m really excited about this project! Due to some particular life circumstances, I have access to hundreds (literally) of SIM cards with no data caps or speed limits, everything depends on the antenna. With each SIM, I can get over 1Gbps on 5G and anywhere from dozens to hundreds of Mbps on 4G/4G+ towers.
A board like this would be amazing for me. I’d love to test how well it can bond six or more SIMs to achieve even better speeds.
If you’re already working with early hardware evaluators, I’d be very interested in seeing what this board can do in real-world scenarios. I could also put together a YouTube video showcasing the aggregated speed results.
we do layout now ,when sample ready , will let you know
Great to hear! Looking forward to it. Thanks for the update.
What I’d really like is a managed switch with L3 functionality running OpenWrt with 4x or 6x SFP+.
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I’ll reach out at the provided email. Thanks!
Do we have proper enclosures with enough antenna openings? Many of the previous cases lacked sufficient cutouts to accommodate all 5G and WiFi antennas. For example, modules usually needs 4 antennas, and new one like the FM190W-GL or RM551 require 7 antennas, and mmWave modules may need up to 12. WiFi 7 also typically requires much more antennas (bpi’s be19000 says 14 Antenna, so no more sma hole for 5g). If the board/wifi module+5g module supports full antenna configurations but the enclosure imposes limitations, it becomes a design bottleneck — and far from ideal.
Additionally, is it really advisable to connect all modules via CPU-driven drivers, especially when multiple vendors are involved (e.g., Fibocom, Quectel, Meig, TD-Tech)? This can introduce considerable performance overhead and stability risks. And, I’ve had the BPI-R4 for over a year, and there still isn’t a stable, production-grade firmware available.
Some other 5G CPE/router vendors seem to be taking a better approach by using 2.5G/1G PHYs — which I believe is the optimal solution. In this setup, modern cellular modules (including quectel/fibocom/td-tech all support this way nativly) operate in PCIe RC mode and use interfaces like RTL8111/8125 (and newer modules such as FM190W also support attaching AQC 5GbE/10GbE NICs), connecting to the router through standard Ethernet. This design avoids the need for vendor-specific drivers (such as rmnet, QMI, RNDIS, ECM, or NCM), many of which are buggy, rely heavily on vendor patches, and disable hardware acceleration — leading to increased CPU load.
If all modules were connected via Ethernet-like interfaces and routed to the 7988 through a switch chip (with VLAN segmentation), it would save PCIe lane/USB bus bandwidth & routing complexity and significantly reduce CPU overhead. In effect, module connections would behave just like standard Ethernet or SFP WAN interfaces, fully leveraging hardware-accelerated forwarding (and most important, it doesn’t require vendor driver). This architecture would also enhance scalability by removing PCIe/USB bottlenecks.
By the way, it’s still a very promising board — is it currently available anywhere (e.g., Taobao)?
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Hi tutugreen,
We are debugging this board and discussing the case with the supplier, so it is not available for sale yet, but it should be available soon.
If using PCIe RC mode, each cellular module needs to add an RTL8111/8125 (this requires module support), and the MT7988 needs to expand 6 2.5G network ports through USXGMII.
Thank you very much for your suggestion. We will evaluate this possibility with MTK and cellular module suppliers.
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