Alerts from a location without Internet - wireless hotspot?

[frankred]

A friend of a friend wants to setup a system to protect his shop. It is a steel building out in the country. He has power service but no internet. I have been wondering if a wireless hotspot might be a fitting solution. I searched on here to see if this concept has already been discussed. I didn't see anything.
I am thinking Wireless hotspot, hopefully with a network port so it could connect directly to his NVR. If I can't find one with a network port, I would need to connect to a travel router via usb, then then NVR.

If the system was setup to do nothing but send email alerts, it shouldn't use too much of the limited data plan. If there was a suspicious alert, it could be accessed for viewing at a heavier data usage rate.

Just curious, has anyone looked into this or have any ideas?
Thanks,
John

 

[frankred]

I found the Netgear 6100d at Freedompop. Seems promising. They have 500MB per month free. I would guess usage could stay under that.
https://www.freedompop.com/devices/netgear-lte-gateway
I am reading through this conversation for poipnters... http://slickdeals.net/f/8474641-freedompop-netgear-lte-gateway-6100d-for-29-99

 

[SyconsciousAu]

Just curious, has anyone looked into this or have any ideas?

There are several 4G modems with ethernet that will do the trick. Get your friend to find out if their carrier does a data share sim card. It's basically a second sim card for their existing mobile phone plan with some extra data added to the pool. All the devices on the account share the data in that pool. If you are only looking at the odd email notification without text then it shouldn't chew too much bandwidth.

If you want to log in and view the footage you will need a 4G router that supports port forwarding and Dynamic DNS. Getting a fixed IP on 4G is next to impossible.

 

[frankred]

There are several 4G modems with ethernet that will do the trick. Get your friend to find out if their carrier does a data share sim card. It's basically a second sim card for their existing mobile phone plan with some extra data added to the pool. All the devices on the account share the data in that pool. If you are only looking at the odd email notification without text then it shouldn't chew too much bandwidth.

If you want to log in and view the footage you will need a 4G router that supports port forwarding and Dynamic DNS. Getting a fixed IP on 4G is next to impossible.

That is a good point about logging in and DDNS. Cox has spoiled me with my internet, my IP hasn't changed in a few years. I wonder how much of the free 500MB the Dyndns client updater app could chew through.

 

[fenderman]

You will not be as able to simply port forward... cellular providers charge a hefty fee for a routeable ip.....this is not something ddns can help you with...

 

[SyconsciousAu]

You will not be as able to simply port forward... cellular providers charge a hefty fee for a routeable ip.....this is not something ddns can help you with...

I just had to double check this one because I was sure that mobile broadband had a dynamic public IP. Discovered that it depends on the product you have. Locally Mobile Broadband products have a public dynamic IP that comes as standard. Wireless Broadband, which includes the data share sim plans unfortunately, does not anymore, having moved to NAT because of problems with IPv4 address availability. There is also some talk that the days of the mobile broadband customers getting a free dynamic IP may be numbered as well, some service providers having moved to NAT for that product too.

OP you might have to talk to your local providers to see if you can get a Dynamic Public IP locally with any of their products, or you might just have to be happy with snapshots sent with email alerts to decide if something is there or not.

Alternatively do you have a friendly and trusted neighbour with a fixed line internet connection who might be willing to let you wirelessly bridge in to their network?

 

[digger11]

I have been wondering if a wireless hotspot might be a fitting solution. I searched on here to see if this concept has already been discussed. I didn't see anything.

Here are a couple of threads on another forum that you might find interesting...

http://www.cam-it.org/index.php?topic=8448.msg50356#msg50356
http://www.cam-it.org/index.php?topic=9372.msg55936#msg55936