How can I view IP camera over 4G only

abc123456

As the question says.....is it indeed possible. I am normally reasonably networking savvy, but cant seem to get my head around this....

I have an outside IP camera at home, monitoring the driveway. It is connected to the home BT broadband via homeplugs (wifi through the electrical system).

It works well at home, however, remote monitoring using a laptop, phone etc is not possible as the upload speed of the home broadband is non existent/rubbish as we are rural.

On the other hand the 4G speed from EE is superfast here, and I now have an EE Osprey mini 2 to supplement our broadband use when we need to upload, ie to YouTube etc.

By removing the IP camera connection to the home network, is there anything I can do/buy/connect to the IP camera so I can view it over 4G using the Osprey?
(ie connect the camera to the Osprey hotspot, so I can view the camera both in the house and outwith using my iphone for example)

Is it even possible? Any advice appreciated before I make my way to Maplins and possibly make a fool of myself !!! :rotfl:

Inner_Zone

You could use a wired and WiFi 4G router, problem is unless you have a static IP data SIM getting remote access could be an issue.

Also see:

http://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-and-home-connections/broadband-gallery-mobile-broadband/home-4gee

I_have_spoken

You need a wi-fi bridge like this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/AKORD-Portable-Wireless-Extender-Repeater/dp/B00VD6Q2IO/ - into which you connect a cable from the Homeplug.

That said, I reckon this will only work if the IP camera is motion triggered and then sends an alert and images to a 'cloud' service for monitoring.

I can't see how you'd initiate a connection to view from the internet directly to the EE Osprey mini 2 and then port-forward to the IP camera. Indeed the terms of service probably specifically exclude using the EE Osprey mini 2 to operate this way.

Of course you could switch and use the 4G for everything - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3200291/Farmer-sick-poor-internet-signal-built-DIY-mast.html

abc123456

Thanks I have spoken and Inner Zone...I did`nt think it was that straightforward !!!... I will wait for BT Fibre !
Thanks again, I appreciate your replies.

I_have_spoken

Can you configure your camera for a lo-resolution stream that won't over-burden your broadband?

By minimising the image size, video quality and frames-per-second, you should get down to 500Kbps or less which TBH is what you'd want for monitoring the cam from a mobile phone connected by 3G.

kwikbreaks

Accessing a normal IP camera sending its data over any phone connection would be a problem as all the phone providers use NAT so your camera doesn't get a proper unique public IP address.

You could access a cloud (also called P2P) camera OK though. I don't believe that they constantly send data to the intermediate server this mechanism uses as that would be very wasteful on bandwidth and isn't necessary.

Your simplest option though would be to just open the required port on your router and give your normal ADSL a try - the frame rate will be self limiting even if you leave it at default. You may need to use a dynamic DNS service such as http://www.noip.com/

petrolhead69

You can do it with a 3g/4g router, if your camera uses a cloud host any sim will do, if you need a nattable ip address for port forwarding only 3 supports this as standard using the 3internet apn and a dyndns host, other networks you have to pay a small fortune each month for a fixed ip sim.
Get a modem with a sim tray, not a usb dongle socket as often the dongle does its own nat internally which is a pita.

abc123456

Thanks guys, I appreciate your advice. I think I will try and adjust the image rate/size etc, although the best upload speed I can ever get here is 150kb/s...it just never seems to cut it!

The camera itself is a P2P type, and I have a free Dynamic DNS address. I can get hold of a 3g/4g router, but after that I am lost at configuring it to work (or not as the case may be!) with EE 4G using the Osprey wifi hotspot device.

As I say, I will give the lower of image etc a go, if that fails, I will wait a couple of years for fibre out here in the sticks!

kwikbreaks

abc123456 wrote: »

The camera itself is a P2P type, and I have a free Dynamic DNS address.

You don't need a dynamic dns service with a P2P type camera and other than connecting it to the router there should be nothing more to configuring it than you have done already.

You would just need to put your EE SIM in the 4G router rather than try to use it with the hotspot unit.

As a good 3G router is expensive you may find it cheaper to get a wifi cloud based camera instead which you could just connect to your existing hot spot.

abc123456

kwikbreaks wrote: »

..........get a wifi cloud based camera instead which you could just connect to your existing hot spot.

Thanks kwikbreaks......how do I connect the camera to the Osprey signal? (sorry about this, but I am totally confused now...:mad: )

I_have_spoken

the best upload speed I can ever get here is 150kb/s

Ouch! Have you done all the usual things to try and speed up ADSL by reducing sources of noise on the wires?

That's the dire level of performance which encourages rural peeps to get together to arrange alternative solutions for community broadband.