I picked up a SIM-lock-free and contract-free Vodafone K5160 LTE stick (manufactured by Huawei) at a good price and wanted to use it with one of my MikroTik routers.
With the then-current MikroTik firmware 6.43.4 this should not be a problem, since the fresh stick (with a SIM inserted!) is recognized when plugged into the USB port, and the MikroTik creates an lte1 interface along with a DHCP client and a default route.
However, pinging e.g. 9.9.9.9 directly from the MikroTik terminal does nothing — the network is not reachable.
There is not much to see in the LTE interface settings either.
What to do?
The stick has the special characteristic that it is itself a complete router!
It has the address 192.168.9.1 and can be configured via a web interface.
Hmm… http://192.168.9.1 shows nothing. Page not reachable.
The MikroTik firewall is blocking it. So add the lte1 interface to the WAN interface list!
Now you can reach the configuration page!
I also had to create the APN internet for my O2 SIM card in the stick under Connection -> Account type -> Custom. I also checked Auto connect, even when roaming.
Via the stick’s web page you can also view connection information (status, duration, data rate, volume).
Works!