Right, I hear you re: the NAT.      I was meaning we've had modem devices on the Meraki compatibility chart that have not even allowed stable internet connections, so without that reaching the cloud we have nada right off the bat...the 730Ls were an example of that for Verizon until Meraki yanked it from the compatibility list after we had already had a number of sites putting them into use.  We don't want some production solution going out to dozens of locations that take too much finagling every time.  So to me it was interesting this Velocity is not on the compatibility list yet is showing steady internet.  We never got steady internet on the last modem they tried, and it WAS on the compatibility list.   In the future we want to give the Z3C unit a fair look and skip this whole USB modem stuff, but as of yet Verizon is not supported on those so that's a deal breaker, and of course they are WAY more expensive than a standard Z3 and sites are looking at the cheapest modems they can that are on the list.   yep, I will try the steps you mentioned..in fact i had already set up the manual NAT on our side via the portal, but having the customer on their side work out the port forwarding is a task, as these are often just small offices and dispatch employees, etc., not I.T. staff or someone designated for this stuff.  At this site she is already fed up and is just packing the whole thing up and bringing it to At&t to see what they can do.  Which may be a good thing. We can hopefully have them set up the forwarding on their side and give that a go.  Or, alternatively, try some other modems or different APNs, etc., that don't cause a firewall block.   At ethernet/switch sites, we encounter that Unfriendly NAT a lot, but having them change the persistent NAT setting on their own firewall (usually SonicWall) always does it.  But i have not seen a modem connection have a firewall/NAT problem until this one. Thanks again.. ... View more

I see what you're saying; thanks for the clarification.  Interestingly enough, the Meraki shows a stable internet connection with that Velocity Stick modem, much better than it did on their old Sierra Wireless AirCard® 313U  which was on the supported list (now discontinued).....but that 313U didn't work at all.     We just are getting that unfriendly NAT killing the VPN tunnel, so as folk have pointed out, either something acting as a NAT with the modem device connection, or needing some sort of forced port NAT in the config to make it happy, which takes a bit of wrangling on the client's side and isn't exactly plug and run.  I'm offering up a few things to try for the folk there and have asked they engage their AT&T rep as well in case we need to bring them into the picture. ... View more

I feel your pain here -  We have many Z1 and Z3 units out in production and numerous very remote sites, running Cell only, mostly Verizon.  The old Pantech 295s work great for us, but are discontinued, and long in the tooth obviously.  We have also had success with a couple of the 620Ls we have out there.  We have NOT had any success with the 720L...tried them, and have a couple out there...but they are very unreliable and go down for hours at a time...then magically start working again for a week.  We've gotten to buying 295s off Amazon to get some of these emergency sites up!   The Z3Cs didn't support Verizon carrier when I tested them (which seems crazy....), but I had it working on Verizon fine.  But they are much more expensive, not to mention the maintenance a lot more expensive.  And until they are officially supported on Verizon, that kills it for us anyway.  But some sites will balk at the price tag anyway.  However, more and more it is looking like the likely solution for us once Verizon is officially supported.  We have some newer Feeney modems in for testing, but I am very wary of USB modem solutions and meraki right now.     That is interesting the 730L has been removed from compatible list...I didn't know that until reading it hear.  It was still on the good list when i opened a ticket with them and stumped several of the techs, most didn't want to mess with the issue at all.  Agreed...if you are truly not going to support it, then don't put the port there and market its ability for this. ... View more

We had horrible problems with the 730L and our Verizon carrier.  We are using Z1 and Z3 merakis and have several sites running cell only connectivity.  We have many out there running on old Pantech modems, working great.  The 730L is listed as a compatible modem on the Cisco Meraki compatibility page, but that was not our experience.  Many network drops, often hours at a time...not good for production law enforcement connection.  We have to hunt and peck to find the ancient Pantech modems, and they work fine.     I opened a case with meraki support and went through several techs, and all were stumped.  And I think the 730L works ok for some areas and folk, but here they've been so sporadic it just is a no-go modem for us.  Hopefully the Z3C comes down in price and be a bit more viable for some site budgets. ... View more

We had horrible problems with the 730L - sporadic drops, sometimes for hours at a time, that we would not have with older Pantech USBs, etc.  Once the 730L became Verizons main modem, that was a drag.  We just couldn't use them, and now search Amazon and the like for ancient, overpriced Pantechs....because they work!  I opened cases with meraki support on this but they were stumped.  We are going to bring in some Feeneys to test out, but they of course are quite a bit more expensive, so some of our remote sites are not liking it.  Not to mention how much more expensive the Z3C Merakis are with built in cell. ... View more

That doesn't sound normal..   In my experience with the Z series anyway, the cell only connection should come up on its own after a reboot after you've introducted the LAN connection the first time when configuring.  I think that first configuration using LAN, then hooking up the Cell...sort of "training wheels" as it were.  This is even suggested as best practice in the Meraki notes for many of the cell modem connections.     We run many devices cell only for the same reasons you do, and I always try and set them up using that training wheels method.  Mostly it has been a success...however, newer modems have proved flaky, at least with our Verizon coverage.  We have to resort to buying old versions of the USB modems from Amazon and such in a pinch.   ... View more

Thanks, I will offer up some of the recommendations to the site...walking some folk through some of that, or having them work with their carrier, etc., can be challenging.   ... View more

Where do you read that the Z doesn't support USB modems?  I would be interested to see that, since last i knew they did:   https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Cellular/3G_-_4G_Cellular_Failover   Under the supported modems they mention it for MX and Z series.  And by in large, we've had decent success with verizon cell connections anyway, with the old Pantechs....the new 730Ls do NOT work for us, consistently.  I know they are not recommended for cell only but rather to backup loss of wired connection, but in our case it has had to suffice in many sites. ... View more

The Meraki we're using at this site is a Z3 with latest firmware.  This is a remote site, but they gave us the ATT USB modem info was given to us as SW-VER:MF985V1.7 Model: MF985.   These are almost all remote sites, sometimes far away (it is Montana after all) and in rural counties where the Cell only possibility of these Merakis is very tempting for them.  But unfortunately we don't often have much access to the actual devices, or even to the PCs being used, etc.  We are simply responsible for building the VPN tunnel to get back to secured info on our servers.  So we troubleshoot with the folk on the site and they do best they can at getting us the info we ask for, etc.  We have a lot of Z series running USB modems...strangely we see the older ones seem to be a lot more solid, while many of the newer modems cause nothing but problems and network drops (the 720L modem with Verizon, for example)...even though it is listed as a compatible modem on Meraki site.  I worked with Meraki techs for weeks troubleshooting before they just gave up.  We just don't use 720L now, which is a bit of a drag because it is the main one Verizon will offer.     Anyway, yes as you mention I figure the device must be doing some sort of NAT'ing of its own (I have not seen this in any of the Verizon ones I've dealt with)...  so possibly going into the carrier software and setting up some kind of port forward may work, though again then we are trying to walk some remote site employee through the process.  It does make me question the modem compatibility list of Meraki though, as we are finding more and more models that are not playing nice without configurations, forwarding, if anything....     ... View more