Once you have all the hardware and data plans ready, you can find the instructions to install Proxidize in our Getting Started guide: https://proxidize.com/getting-started/
The 4G mobile proxy hardware requires 4 main components:
In this guide, we will be discussing the exact requirements you need to get started with Proxidize, specifically the hardware.
Installation is as simple as plugging the hardware together and running the script. Here's a small sample video of the Proxidize installation process:
You need SIM cards to be able to connect to the 4G mobile carrier's network, and with these SIM cards you need a data plan. Getting SIM cards in bulk might sound difficult, but it's actually easier than you expect.
When picking a data plan make sure you understand your uses. It's difficult to predict data use when you haven't measured it, but somewhere around:
Social plans are a great way to get unlimited data at a good price if you're only dealing with social media.
Data prices vary a lot by country, but you should expect to pay around $20 - $30 per data plan monthly or about $1 per GB of data per month, this is great when you consider you get access to almost unlimited IPs from your exact city.
In the majority of countries around the world, you can walk into any 4G mobile store that sells SIM cards and buy them. Generally getting anything less than 50 modems should be an easy task.
If you plan on getting more than 50 dongles/modems, it's best to do it through a business account with the 4G mobile carrier. If they ask for a purpose you can say it's for your employees, tracking company cars, etc. or you can be honest and say it's for proxies that you use for research purposes and most carriers will be happy to take your money. This step is a lot easier than you might expect.
Proxidize requires the USB modems/dongles to be able to connect to the mobile carrier’s network from the SIM card in order to create your 3G/4G mobile proxies. Modems or dongles are practically small USB routers that connect directly to the carrier. The way Proxidize 4G mobile proxies work is by routing the proxy connection from a device connecting to the proxy to the mobile network and from there to the internet and back.
Proxidize supports more than 50 different 3G and 4G dongles/modems and even more modems are to be supported soon. Every Huawei Hilink and most ZTE dongles are supported.
Fully supported models:
Note: 3G modems are not recommended as they greatly affect the usability of your proxy as you often only get 10% to 30% of the advertised speed.
Please note when you order the hardware from us you won't have to worry about this as we will check all the bands in your country before shipping and send you the correct modem.
Different modem/dongle models support different cellular bands or frequencies, these are needed to allow multiple mobile carriers and different technologies (3G, 4G, etc.) to operate in the same geographical area, as each mobile carrier or cellular technology generally needs its own bands to run their network on, otherwise there will be interference.
Fortunately, most of the world uses the same bands except North and South America. If you buy a dongle/modem in Europe or in China it will work globally except in the Americas and the same is true for when buying a dongle/modem from the Americas where they won't work properly in the rest of the world.
The general global band distribution is the following:
If you want to be extra cautious since there are a few exceptions to these bands, you can find the mobile bands your carrier uses here, and compare them to the E3372h models to the left.
USB modems/dongles used to be extremely common around 2010 to 2014 especially in developing countries where almost everyone relied on them for internet access. Today where most countries have better ADSL and fiber internet infrastructure, these dongles/modems are in much less demand, therefore prices have dropped but it also made it more difficult to find them.
Every mobile carrier in the world likely has a few thousands of these modems sitting in a warehouse collecting dust. Through your business account with this mobile carrier, talk to your rep and ask if you can buy them, most of the time the answer will be yes, and you will get a decent price since if they're not sold they'll be sent to India or China to be recycled at a loss for the carrier.
Note: modems bought from carriers often come carrier-locked which means they can only be used with SIM cards from this carrier. So if you plan to buy dongles from a carrier keep this in mind. Modems can be unlocked, but it's difficult and time-consuming.
If you can't find any 4G dongles from your carrier, the next place to look is in local mobile stores, especially chain ones. Same scenario as with the carriers where they often have some collecting dust. Take a few minutes to collect the contact information of the largest 10 stores in your city and call or email them one by one. Always try to go for unlocked modems.
You should expect to pay: $65-$100/modem for decent models. A little more if you're in North or South America.
This might sound complicated, but it's actually very simple. The Huawei USB modems/dongles can run 2 different software versions, one is called Hi-Link mode, and this is the one we want, and the other is called "PPP" or "stick" mode and this one is not supported. Always ask the seller about the mode and make sure it's Hi-Link, if they say they don't know what that is, just ask them any of the following questions:
And if the answer is yes to any of these questions that means it's in Hi-Link mode.
Even if the seller says it's Hi-Link, it's good practice to test it first. The test is very easy, just plug the modem into a macOS or Windows device and wait for the browser to open the modems' web dashboard or the website msn.com that looks like the picture to the left. (msn.com is the website the modem uses to check for internet connection.)
Also, disconnect Ethernet and WiFi and test the connection from the modem, it can take up to 40 seconds to connect.
Note: This test cannot be done on Linux.
To be able to connect a high number of 4G dongles to create 4G mobile proxies, we need a USB hub. A USB hub is just a peripheral device that extends the number of available USB ports on a host.
We need multiple dongles/modems to be able to create multiple dedicated 4G mobile proxies.
Proxidize software itself can support up to 250 dongles per device, however, all devices have some sort of hardware limit, even when using a USB hub.
Examples of the maximum supported dongles/modems:
Regarding supported USB hubs, in theory, any USB hub with external power should work just fine, but we recommend you only use tested hubs.
We recommend getting a Proxidize Box mainly because it offers the best value. A Proxidize Box is a modified SBC very similar to the Raspberry Pi but it supports more dongles and is more stable.
Proxidize can support a Raspberry Pi or a Linux PC/Laptop as the host. The host device is used to connect the USB modems and host the Proxidize software, plus it servers in routing the connection from the proxy to the 4G mobile network.
When choosing a PC or a Raspberry Pi there are many things to consider, if you don't have any experience with Linux or if you're not a techy person in general then it's best to select the Proxidize Box or a Raspberry Pi as the PC can be more difficult to manage. There are really no benefits to using a PC over a Proxidize Box.
Note: When Proxidize is running on a host device, no other networking-related software can run. This is due to technology complications as Proxidize takes over networking completely and any interference will break regular function.
Once you have all the hardware and data plans ready, you can find the instructions to install Proxidize in our Getting Started guide: https://proxidize.com/getting-started/
All Proxidize hardware is assembled and shipped with 
from the United States 
and the Netherlands 
All Proxidize hardware is assembled and shipped with from the United States and the Netherlands