[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router

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[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router
[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router
2022-03-31 07:24:26 - last edited 2022-03-31 07:26:15
Model: TL-MR100  
Hardware Version: V1
Firmware Version: latest

Hello,

 

I'm facing an issue related to TL-MR100 routers that are transferring an abnormal high volume no sense data.

 

I have a live experiment test. A router is actually serving 2 IoT devices that consume about 60KB/day data transfer, so it's a total 120KB/day. The problem is the router is counting an average daily transfer of 10MB. Even the mobile service provider (Things Mobile) is confirming those 10MB/day. This situation carries unnecessary data transfer fees that block this project sales launch.

 

I have to say, the router is secured using WPA2 secure password and only those two IoT WiFi clients are actually connected. I have also tried alternative SIM cards/providers with similar results.

 

What can be producing such amount of hidden traffic?

How to prevent/block that traffic?

 

Is anyone of you using this kind of mobile routers for IoT connectivity and facing the same issues? Any workaround ideas?

 

Thanks for reading!

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#1
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Re:[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router
2022-04-02 06:22:48

  @rfr Hi, except for the 2*IOT devices, the model itself would also consume data to maintain systematic communication, like updating the time.

"2 IoT devices that consume about 60KB/day data transfer", did you get information on a different 4G router or may I know why you got this info?

Are you able to test on a different 4G router with the same clients connected?

Thank you very much.

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Re:[TL-MR100] Abnormal data transfer in 3G/4G router
2022-04-05 06:57:24 - last edited 2022-04-05 06:59:11

@David-TP  Thank you for your reply.

 

The connected devices are posting on 11 minutes intervals a 80 bytes long JSON to an API REST. Theoretically it is about 10.5 KB/day per device. However, the server reports an average 60 KB per device, that is including all HTTP negotiation, DNS resolution and so on...

 

Anyway, the router and also the Things Mobile reports several megabytes per day. So the big question is how to control that hidden traffic.

 

I have other TL-MR100 units having the same behavior. Have not tested another kind of 3G router but following your nice idea, I'll get an alternative unit and repeat the same test. In addition, I'll test the router alone w/o clients in order to measure if it still transfer that hidden traffic.

 

Maybe this TP-Link router has ani kind of built in feature to monitor all traffic o simply any option to block all self traffic (I mean, maybe I don't really need updating time and date more than once per week or month).

 

Thank you for your kind support!

 

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