Cradlepoint CBA250 cellular broadband adapter available

Alex

3Gstore now has the Cradlepoint CBA250 "Cellular Broadband Adapter" available for $179.99

This is NOT a router that most people will want. It is suited for commercial/business applications where the attached equipment needs the "public facing" ip address of the cellular modem. The CBA250 has NO wifi whatsoever and only one ethernet port.

To understand WHO this "adapter" is for, please check out:

CBA250 Cellular BroadBand Adapter - 3G/EVDO/HSDPA cellular to ethernet network adapter

Buy the CBA250 at 3Gstore.com
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Mikebat · EVDO User Joined: 02 Dec 2008 Posts: 38

I know what that does. It's not very sexy. That's what makes it so sexy. Smile

bmillham · Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 8:55 pm Post subject:

Neat idea, if you already have a router/firewall. But the price seems high for what it does. The 350 has the router/firewall/WiFi for a lot less.

I assume that the price is high because it's new.

JoeCHecht · EVDO Junkie Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 409

I have been looking for something just like this!

If I get this straight, when a hurricane or whatever takes out the normal broadband connection here at the office, I can hook this up to WAN connection of our network and keep right on going???

That would be very cool, cause we have a lot invested in the network, and reconfiguring different router with mobile broadband failover (and testing in real time) is out of the question.

This little gem might just be the answer.

Joe

Alex · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:31 am Post subject:

Michael · Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:38 am Post subject:

JoeCHecht · EVDO Junkie Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 409

Grimlord · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Jan 2009 Posts: 3

Okay. I already have a DLink DGL-4500 with a full network behind it (server and workstations). Unfortunately, it doesn't support using the USB port for modems Sad

I've tried using both Linux and Windows Servers and with "ICS" up till now but hate it.

So my question is which would be better for me:

1) Buying the CBA250 and connecting it to the WAN port on the DLink or 2) Buying an MBR800 and just hooking it and the DLink to a switch with no "WAN" on the DLink?

Alex · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject:

if you do not need the cellular modem's "public facing IP address" passed through to your network for any reason, the CBA250 is not the best option for you.

if you are POSITIVE you would not ever enjoy the use of WiFi N, the MBR800 is a good choice

but if it were my money i'd prefer to have the WiFi N of MBR1000 as backup to whatever wireless access point you may already have in place.
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Grimlord · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Jan 2009 Posts: 3

Thanks Alex.

My DLink is already running WiFi-N. In fact, it has Gamefuel (the MBR1000 has something similar but I forget the name) for gaming and all that fancy stuff. I had an MBR1000 that was dropping 1k packets a minute so I went with the DLink. In fact, the DLink and MBR100o interfaces were almost EXACTLY the same, minus the USB modem support on the Dlink. Even the cases were virtually identical!

I would actually like to run my own website and mail server at home instead paying a hosting company like I do now. I'm a system admin so I'm not worried about "supporting" either solution. What I'm not sure of is if there is any performance differences between IP-Passthrough to the DLink WAN connection versus a straight CP router with everything plugged into a switch. IE, will I loose the advantage of GameFuel QoSing if it's used just a wireless hub? Make sense?

Unfortunately, I can't just justify the MBR1000 when I already have the DLink Sad

Alex · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject:

since the MBR800 is exactly an MBR1000 less the wifi, you're going to be better off trying the CBA250 which will do ZERO "routing" and simply act as a "cellular to ethernet convertor".
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Grimlord · EVDO Newbie Joined: 29 Jan 2009 Posts: 3

Cool! Thank you for the quick response!

I'll report back with how things go Smile

Coopsterman321 · EVDO Newbie Joined: 06 Feb 2009 Posts: 1

So has anybody actually used one of these?
I'm considering it for use on a VPN endpoint router/firewall where WAN1 is DSL and WAN2 would be this EVDO device.
Will the passthru mode support IPSEC VPN site-to-site tunnels?

JoeCHecht · EVDO Junkie Joined: 05 Jan 2008 Posts: 409

colebert · EVDO Junkie Joined: 26 Jan 2007 Posts: 170

I have had problems with this device and my somicwall TZ190, though it could be somewhat related to the sonicwall's DHCP client on their WAN ports. I tried to workaround this by putting the CBA250 into NAT mode and assign a static IP to the WAN port but the CBA250 inexplicably doesn't work with statically assigned IPs... only DHCP.

Sometimes the device doesn't handle the disconnects very well. This is a big deal if you have a provider than terminates sessions after a set period of time.

For example:

Verizon: 23h 50m session limits
Alltel: 11h 57m session limits.

Overall, the device is pretty slick. But You might be better off getting a device with some more logic in it (i.e., CTR500 or 800) and just doing NAT traversal on your VPN.

But to answer you question, yes VPNs work fine on the unit. It is a true IP-passthrough device.

I bought two of these units for a project I was working on and this limitation has made it where I only can use one. I bought mine from 3G store but didn't realize the problem until after the return period. I would recommend you get yours from 3G store and do your testing prior to the return period.