Introduction
At almost any forum related to the network technologies there is a huge number of topics devoted to the questions of compatibility this or that wireless router with a particular model of 3G or 4G USB dongle: the devices can be incompatible or it can be just impossible to find a compatible model for sale... ASUS company met its users halfway and offered a wireless router with a built-in LTE modem – it’s enough just to insert a SIM card. Okay, welcome, today ASUS 4G-AC55U is in our testing laboratory!
External design
ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router comes in a black plastic case. We have already seen a similar design, for example, for RT-AC68U model. The dimensions are 220х160х84 mm. To work properly the model under review needs an external adapter (included in the box together with replaceable plugs) with the following characteristics: 19V and 1,75A.
The great part of the front panel is covered with mat ribbed plastic with LEDs indicating the status of wired and wireless interfaces of the router and operating of the whole device. Apart from that, names of the model and vendor are located here as well.
On one side there are two buttons Wi-Fi and LTE for managing wireless networks and a socket for inserting a SIM card.
The significant part of the rear panel is hidden by a ventilation grate. In addition, four LAN and one WAN Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, a USB 2.0 port, Reset button, a socket for a power adapter connection together with a power ON/OFF button and one for enabling/disabling Wi-Fi wireless network within both frequency ranges are placed here. Moreover, there is a sticker with brief information about the device here.
The bottom panel of the device comes as a stand with three rubber legs and a clip for facilitation of SIM card removing procedure.
Located on the upper panel of the router, there are sockets for connecting two antennae. The third antenna is also located here, but it is non-detachable.
Now let’s have a look at the insides of the case.
Hardware
The hardware platform of ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless 4G router consists of two textolite plates: a motherboard and a wireless module used for connecting to mobile operator networks. The significant part of one side of the motherboard is covered with a radiator without a ventilator, behind which there are two metal screens. The only visible microchip is Qualcomm QCA8337N-AL3C.
On the opposite side there is Zentel flash memory module A5U1GA31ATS-BC of 128 Mbytes.
That’s where we proceed to completion of the review of the router hardware and pass directly on to its software capabilities.
Web-interface
To get access to the web-interface one should go to 192.168.1.1 address with the help of any modern browser. It’s worth noting that the web-interface is available in 21 languages.
We will not describe all capabilities of the device web-interface in detail, but, as 4G-AC55U has the built-in LTE modem, let’s concentrate on the capabilities related to LTE connection.
If one inserted a SIM card to the device in advance, the corresponding connection would be detected immediately during the initial settings.
In the upper right corner of the web-interface there are two icons displaying the presence of a SIM card and LTE connection. The setting of connection to a mobile operator is performed with the help of Internet Connection tab of WAN menu item, one should just choose a corresponding type of a WAN port. Apart from the connection settings, one can set a limitation on the amount of user traffic and view the current amount of data usage here.
The connection is possible not only to LTE but also to networks of previous generations.
If necessary, an administrator can get access to status information by the set up wireless connection.
ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router supports DualWAN functionality, which allows switching to a standby channel in case of a failure of the main one. Dual WAN tab of WAN menu item allows the administrator to specify which channel is main and which one is standby. Despite the fact that the device under review has the built-in LTE modem, if necessary, a user can select as main and standby only wired links.
That’s where we bring the extremely brief review of the web-interface of ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router to a close.
Command line
Managing the access to the command line of ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router is carried out with the help of System tab, Administration menu.
Login and password used for the access to the command line interface are the same as for the web-interface access. ASUS 4G-AC55U router is built on Linux operating system with a kernel version 3.3.8 using BusyBox of version 1.17.4.
4G-AC55U login: admin
Password:
ASUSWRT 4G-AC55U_3.0.0.4 Wed Jan 7 03:00:47 UTC 2015
admin@4G-AC55U:/tmp/home/root# cd /
admin@4G-AC55U:/# uname -a
Linux 4G-AC55U 3.3.8 #67 Tue Jan 6 14:11:03 CST 2015 mips GNU/Linux
admin@4G-AC55U:/# busybox
BusyBox v1.17.4 (2014-12-31 11:18:11 CST) multi-call binary.
Copyright (C) 1998-2009 Erik Andersen, Rob Landley, Denys Vlasenko
and others. Licensed under GPLv2.
See source distribution for full notice.
Usage: busybox [function] [arguments]...
or: function [arguments]...
BusyBox is a multi-call binary that combines many common Unix
utilities into a single executable. Most people will create a
link to busybox for each function they wish to use and BusyBox
will act like whatever it was invoked as.
Currently defined functions:
[, [[, arp, ash, awk, basename, blkid, cat, chmod, chown, chpasswd, clear, cmp, cp, crond, cut, date, dd, df,
dirname, dmesg, du, e2fsck, echo, egrep, env, ether-wake, ethreg, expr, fdisk, fgrep, find, flock, free,
fsck.ext2, fsck.ext3, fsck.minix, fsync, grep, gunzip, gzip, head, ifconfig, insmod, ionice, kill, killall,
klogd, less, ln, logger, login, ls, lsmod, lsusb, md, md5sum, mdev, mkdir, mke2fs, mkfs.ext2, mkfs.ext3, mknod,
mkswap, mm, modprobe, more, mount, mv, netstat, nice, nohup, nslookup, pidof, ping, ping6, printf, ps, pwd,
readlink, renice, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, sed, setconsole, sh, sleep, sort, strings, swapoff, swapon, sync,
syslogd, tail, tar, telnetd, test, top, touch, tr, traceroute, traceroute6, true, tune2fs, udhcpc, umount,
uname, unzip, uptime, usleep, vconfig, vi, watch, wc, wget, which, zcat, zcip
admin@4G-AC55U:/#
With the help of ps command, let’s see what processes are currently running on the device. Top utility shows information on the current activity of the launched processes.
admin@4G-AC55U:/# ps
PID USER VSZ STAT COMMAND
1 admin 4288 S /sbin/init
2 admin 0 SW [kthreadd]
3 admin 0 SW [ksoftirqd/0]
5 admin 0 SW [kworker/u:0]
6 admin 0 SW< [khelper]
7 admin 0 SW [irq/10-ath79-gp]
8 admin 0 SW [sync_supers]
9 admin 0 SW [bdi-default]
10 admin 0 SW< [kblockd]
11 admin 0 SW [kswapd0]
12 admin 0 SW [fsnotify_mark]
13 admin 0 SW< [crypto]
20 admin 0 SW [mtdblock0]
21 admin 0 SW [mtdblock1]
22 admin 0 SW [ubi_bgt0d]
23 admin 0 SW [kworker/u:1]
28 admin 0 SW [mtdblock2]
33 admin 0 SW [mtdblock3]
38 admin 0 SW [mtdblock4]
43 admin 0 SW [mtdblock5]
44 admin 0 SW [mtdblock6]
49 admin 0 SW [mtdblock7]
50 admin 0 SW [mtdblock8]
55 admin 0 SW [mtdblock9]
56 admin 0 SW [mtdblock10]
112 admin 800 S hotplug2 --persistent --no-coldplug
197 admin 4260 S console
199 admin 0 SW [ubifs_bgt0_6]
200 admin 1832 S /bin/sh
204 admin 1816 S syslogd -m 0 -S -O /jffs/syslog.log -s 256 -l 6
207 admin 1816 S /sbin/klogd
213 admin 0 SW [khubd]
279 admin 4268 S usbled
467 admin 1820 R telnetd
468 admin 4268 S wpsaide
476 admin 4268 S ntp
490 admin 1828 S crond
491 admin 1236 S /usr/sbin/infosvr br0
494 admin 4268 S watchdog
497 admin 4268 S ots
500 admin 1448 S rstats
507 admin 4268 S lteled
508 admin 1316 S lld2d br0
1012 admin 1304 S lpd
5112 admin 0 SW [kworker/0:2]
16108 admin 0 SW [kworker/0:0]
21077 admin 0 SW [kworker/0:3]
21668 admin 0 SW [flush-ubifs_0_6]
23548 admin 3476 S < /usr/sbin/smbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
23549 admin 2636 S nmbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
23552 admin 6768 S minidlna -f /etc/minidlna.conf -R
24260 admin 1232 S hostapd -d -B /etc/Wireless/conf/hostapd_ath0.conf -P /var/run/hostapd_2g.pid
24263 admin 1232 S hostapd -d -B /etc/Wireless/conf/hostapd_ath1.conf -P /var/run/hostapd_5g.pid
24269 admin 4268 S /sbin/wanduck
24273 nobody 1152 S dnsmasq --log-async
24622 admin 900 S miniupnpd -f /etc/upnp/config
24748 admin 4308 S /etc/openvpn/vpnserver1 --cd /etc/openvpn/server1 --config config.ovpn
24756 admin 4400 S /etc/openvpn/vpnserver1 --cd /etc/openvpn/server1 --config config.ovpn
24761 admin 4164 S httpd
24762 admin 1392 S networkmap
24764 admin 4408 S u2ec
27435 admin 1840 S -sh
28466 admin 0 SW [kworker/0:1]
28795 admin 1888 S /bin/sh /usr/sbin/modem_status.sh sim
28807 admin 1812 S flock -x /tmp/at_cmd_lock modem_at.sh +CPIN?
28808 admin 1820 S /bin/sh /usr/sbin/modem_at.sh +CPIN?
28815 admin 792 S chat -t 1 -e AT+CPIN? OK
28816 admin 1820 R ps
admin@4G-AC55U:/# top
Mem: 73184K used, 52516K free, 0K shrd, 8400K buff, 23888K cached
CPU: 9% usr 0% sys 0% nic 90% idle 0% io 0% irq 0% sirq
Load average: 0.16 0.18 0.17 1/64 28954
PID PPID USER STAT VSZ %MEM %CPU COMMAND
23552 1 admin S 6768 5% 0% minidlna -f /etc/minidlna.conf -R
24764 1 admin S 4408 4% 0% u2ec
24756 1 admin S 4400 3% 0% /etc/openvpn/vpnserver1 --cd /etc/openvpn/server1 --config config.ovpn
24748 1 admin S 4308 3% 0% /etc/openvpn/vpnserver1 --cd /etc/openvpn/server1 --config config.ovpn
1 0 admin S 4288 3% 0% /sbin/init
494 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% watchdog
507 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% lteled
476 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% ntp
24269 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% /sbin/wanduck
279 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% usbled
497 494 admin S 4268 3% 0% ots
468 1 admin S 4268 3% 0% wpsaide
197 1 admin S 4260 3% 0% console
24761 1 admin S 4164 3% 0% httpd
23548 1 admin S < 3476 3% 0% /usr/sbin/smbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
23549 1 admin S 2636 2% 0% nmbd -D -s /etc/smb.conf
27435 467 admin S 1840 1% 0% -sh
200 197 admin S 1832 1% 0% /bin/sh
490 1 admin S 1828 1% 0% crond
467 1 admin S 1820 1% 0% telnetd
28954 27435 admin R 1820 1% 0% top
207 1 admin S 1816 1% 0% /sbin/klogd
204 1 admin S 1816 1% 0% syslogd -m 0 -S -O /jffs/syslog.log -s 256 -l 6
500 1 admin S 1448 1% 0% rstats
508 1 admin S 1316 1% 0% lld2d br0
1012 1 admin S 1304 1% 0% lpd
491 1 admin S 1236 1% 0% /usr/sbin/infosvr br0
24263 1 admin S 1232 1% 0% hostapd -d -B /etc/Wireless/conf/hostapd_ath1.conf -P /var/run/hostapd_5g.pid
24260 1 admin S 1232 1% 0% hostapd -d -B /etc/Wireless/conf/hostapd_ath0.conf -P /var/run/hostapd_2g.pid
24273 1 nobody S 1152 1% 0% dnsmasq --log-async
24622 1 admin S 900 1% 0% miniupnpd -f /etc/upnp/config
112 1 admin S 800 1% 0% hotplug2 --persistent --no-coldplug
3 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [ksoftirqd/0]
44 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock6]
16108 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/0:0]
5112 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/0:2]
21077 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/0:3]
8 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [sync_supers]
11 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kswapd0]
22 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [ubi_bgt0d]
213 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [khubd]
2 0 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kthreadd]
21668 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [flush-ubifs_0_6]
23 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/u:1]
199 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [ubifs_bgt0_6]
56 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock10]
6 2 admin SW< 0 0% 0% [khelper]
7 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [irq/10-ath79-gp]
5 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/u:0]
10 2 admin SW< 0 0% 0% [kblockd]
55 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock9]
49 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock7]
20 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock0]
21 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock1]
12 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [fsnotify_mark]
13 2 admin SW< 0 0% 0% [crypto]
28 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock2]
33 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock3]
38 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock4]
43 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock5]
9 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [bdi-default]
28466 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [kworker/0:1]
50 2 admin SW 0 0% 0% [mtdblock8]
Now let's turn to /proc catalogue to view its contents and find out the operating system uptime, its average utilization, information on the CPU installed, and the amount of RAM. In general, one can discover the system uptime and its average utilization with the help of uptime command.
admin@4G-AC55U:/# cd /proc
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# ls
1 23 33 6 execdomains nvram
10 23548 38 7 filesystems pagetypeinfo
1012 23549 43 8 fs partitions
11 23552 44 9 interrupts scsi
112 24260 467 athdebug iomem self
12 24263 468 athignoredfs ioports softirqs
13 24269 476 athnodefixedrate irq stat
16108 24273 49 athrtscts kallsyms swaps
197 24622 490 athversion kcore sys
199 24748 491 bled kmsg sysrq-trigger
2 24756 494 buddyinfo kpagecount sysvipc
20 24761 497 bus kpageflags timer_list
200 24764 5 cmdline loadavg tty
204 27435 50 consoles locks uptime
207 279 500 cpuinfo meminfo version
21 28 507 crypto misc vmallocinfo
21077 28466 508 device-tree modules vmstat
213 29009 5112 devices mounts zoneinfo
21668 29604 55 diskstats mtd
22 3 56 driver net
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# cat uptime
272617.64 262952.43
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# cat loadavg
0.08 0.15 0.16 1/65 29714
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# cat cpuinfo
system type : Qualcomm Atheros QCA9558 rev 0
machine : Atheros AP135 reference board
processor : 0
cpu model : MIPS 74Kc V5.0
BogoMIPS : 358.80
wait instruction : yes
microsecond timers : yes
tlb_entries : 32
extra interrupt vector : yes
hardware watchpoint : yes, count: 4, address/irw mask: [0x0000, 0x07b0, 0x0238, 0x07e8]
ASEs implemented : mips16 dsp
shadow register sets : 1
kscratch registers : 0
core : 0
VCED exceptions : not available
VCEI exceptions : not available
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# cat meminfo
MemTotal: 125700 kB
MemFree: 51968 kB
Buffers: 8400 kB
Cached: 23888 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 18208 kB
Inactive: 21144 kB
Active(anon): 7320 kB
Inactive(anon): 304 kB
Active(file): 10888 kB
Inactive(file): 20840 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 0 kB
SwapFree: 0 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 7084 kB
Mapped: 4792 kB
Shmem: 560 kB
Slab: 21600 kB
SReclaimable: 2392 kB
SUnreclaim: 19208 kB
KernelStack: 552 kB
PageTables: 580 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 62848 kB
Committed_AS: 19400 kB
VmallocTotal: 1048372 kB
VmallocUsed: 1544 kB
VmallocChunk: 1034604 kB
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc# uptime
06:43:58 up 3 days, 3:43, load average: 0.05, 0.14, 0.15
admin@4G-AC55U:/proc#
Contents of /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin and /usr/sbin catalogues, as well as the output of sysinfo utility, are located in a separate file.
We cannot help but mention nvram utility that allows changing certain important device operation parameters.
admin@4G-AC55U:/# nvram
usage: nvram [get name] [set name=value] [unset name] [show] [save file] [restore file]
admin@4G-AC55U:/# nvram show | grep admin
http_username=admin
http_passwd=admin
acc_list=admin>admin
acc_webdavproxy=admin>1
size: 35762 bytes (25678 left)
That’s where we draw the brief review of the router command line interface capabilities to a close and pass on directly to testing the device.
Testing
The first traditional test we begin this part with is estimating the booting time of the device, which is a time interval starting with the moment when the power is on until the first echo reply is received through ICMP. ASUS 4G-AC55U boots in 40 seconds. We consider that it is a normal result.
The second no less than standard test is a security scanning procedure of the device, performing with the help of a security scanner Positive Technologies XSpider 7.7 (Demo build 3100). There were 18 open ports discovered. The most interesting data of this test are presented below.
During performance testing, we decided to measure the temperature of the device case using our lab pyrometer ADA TempPro-2200. The maximum temperature we have discovered was 41,5°C at air temperature of 25°C.
Before getting down to performance tests we would like to get our readers familiar with the main parameters of the test stand we used. JPerf utility of 2.0.2 version was used as a load generator.
| Component | PC | Notebook |
| Motherboard | ASUS Maximus VI Extreme | ASUS M60J |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 4790K 4 GHz | Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz |
| RAM | DDR3 PC3-10700 SEC 32 Gbytes | DDR3 PC3-10700 SEC 16 Gbytes |
| NIC | Intel PRO/1000 PT Atheros AR8131 |
Atheros AR8131 |
| OS | Windows 7 x64 SP1 Rus | Windows 7 x64 SP1 Rus |
This time we decided to change the usual order of performance testing and started with measuring performance of the wireless segment for both frequency ranges.
Then we decided to pass on to testing the performance of the wired segment and measured throughput in three operation modes of the device: simple routing, NAT/PAT with hardware acceleration and NAT/PAT without it. The measurement results are presented at the diagrams below.
Apart from IPv4, ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router also supports the next version of IP protocol – IPv6. At the diagram below, there is throughput of user traffic with the use of IPv6 protocol.
The connection to some Internet providers in Russia and CIS countries is performed via PPTP tunnels. Obviously, we cannot neglect the support of this protocol by the router.
It’s worth noting that for the connection of remote users to the router’s built-in PPTP server data throughput corresponds to the presented above.
In addition to PPTP, the connection with the help of OpenVPN protocol is supported.
ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router has USB 2.0 port, to which connections of external hardware drives with corresponding interfaces are available. We used our external hard drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 of 750 Gbytes with a partition consistently formatted to the following file systems: NTFS, FAT32 and EXT3. The measurements were carried out with the help of Intel NASPT utility of 1.7.1 version.
Naturally, we cannot neglect the support of ASUS 4G-AC55U router to connect to mobile operator networks. Of course, we understand that measured throughput depends on many different factors: operator’s network utilization, distance from a cell tower (BSS), interference and reflections… However, we cannot help but share the estimating results in our office.
At the graph below one can see the channel loading during the performance testing.
Corresponding CPU usage is presented below.
That’s where we complete testing part and pass on to summing it all up.
Conclusion
On the whole, we are pleased with tested ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router with the built-in LTE modem. Such a binding of two devices can be very useful for users who want to organize a main or standby channel via a mobile operator, as it doesn’t require connection of an external USB dongle and its configuring. The availability of the high-performance CPU will allow organizing high-speed access via wired operators at speeds sufficient for a small local network with multiple users.
The strength areas of ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router are listed below.
- Built-in LTE modem
- High throughput via PPTP tunnel
- USB 2.0 port
- IPv6 support
- Hardware acceleration of IPv4 traffic during NAT/PAT
- Support of both wireless ranges
- Built-in VPN client and server
Unfortunately, we cannot help but mention a discovered drawback of the device.
- The web-interface is not completely translated
When this review was being written, ASUS 4G-AC55U wireless router wasn’t even officially announced, so it’s more than prematurely to tell about its price.
Comments
Are you talking about 20-pin white plastic connector? If so, yep, second board was connected to it. It is wireless module, depicted above.
Thank you! Was there anything attached to the connector on the right?
Hi Datwin,
Yep, I have one.
http://foxnetlab.com/images/images/2016/asus_4g-ac55u/hardware/asus_4g-ac55u_hardware_09_high.jpg
Hope, it helps.
Thanks for your positive feedback, I do appreciate it.
Frankly speaking, I don't know the exact type of the connector. I have no the device in question for now, because I had to send it back right after our tests. But I have a photo with a higher resolution if you need it. Best way here is to write to the ASUS guys directly.
Congratulations for the review, great stuff!
I was wondering if you could let me know the antenna type connector type ... From the photos it looks SMA like, but I am kind of not sure.
I tell you why: I want to install another antenna on the roof of my house to get a better 4G signal :)
Thanks in advance.
Cheers and keep up the good work!
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