Question dual wan using DSL and Mobil Internet

[wmrayt]

Looking for a dual wan router that will accept internet from DSL providers mode/router and a MiFi 7730L Verizon hotspot. It looks like I could use a USB to Cat5 adapter if the router would accept it with out having to install drivers.
I see that some Dual Wan routers have a usb port. But not sure if will accept internet at that point or if they are for something else.
My DSL ISP is Frontier.

Would also like to use in camper using campground wifi and the MiFi. But will leave that for another thread.

 

[bill001g]

Your best option is going to be to try something other the a mifi. There are dsl routers that support some external broadband modem. Asus and tplink have a number of models but you will need to check to see which modems are supported.

You are asking for something that likely does not exist. First have a dsl modem inside the router limits your choice. The DSL modem also prevents you from using many of the third party firmware that would let you accomplish this on connection that uses some of the tethered phone solutions.

The major issue is there are no routers that will support the mifi connected via usb. The router would need to load device drivers. It not like a pc you must rebuild the actual OS to add any drivers. So that leaves using one of the wifi radios as a WAN. There are routers that do that but I have not seen any that also have a dsl modem in them. Third party firmware can do this but then you lose the DSL modem even if the router has it. There are software license issues about distributing the drivers the modem needs.

The other option would be to use a external wifi bridge to get the signal and then plug that into a router wan port. Again I know there are routers that have dsl and wan ports but I don't think you can use both at the same time.

There is no USB to ethernet that will work with the mifi. It only talks to tethered software via USB it will not produce ethernet packets and I know of no device that will convert a tethered USB to ethernet.

 

[Solandri]

What exactly are you trying to do?

• If your intent is to use DSL for Internet, and have it automatically switch to the MiFi if the DSL goes down, there are plenty of business-class routers which will do that. Search for something called a failover router. They're usually a couple hundred bucks.
• If your intent is to use both DSL and MiFi simultaneously, sending some traffic over DSL, some traffic over MiFi (bandwidth is DSL + Mifi, but max transfer speed for any one application is the higher speed of the two). then you want a load balancing router. These are also usually a couple hundred bucks. In fact most routers with failover can also do load balancing, and vice versa.
• If your intent is to combine DSL and MiFi so the bandwidth and max data transfer speed is the combination of the two (DSL speed + MiFi speed), then you want something called a channel bonding router. These are expensive - I wouldn't be surprised if you had to pay $1000 for a decent one, although I've seen ones with reduced feature sets for around $300-$500. Some of them also require you to subscribe to a service which acts as the receiving end of the bonded channels. If you're competent with Linux, you can actually set one of these up yourself with a Linux computer at home and shell access to a VPS. But I wouldn't recommend that unless you're a masochist for Linux because of the maintenance and upkeep required.

(If the MiFi is wireless-only i.e. a hotspot, you'll need a wireless router/AP in client mode to convert it into Ethernet. I usually use a Ubiquito Nanostation LocoM2 or M5 because they can do double-duty as a long-range antenna if you need - handy for picking up distant hotspots while you're traveling.)

 

[wmrayt]

I am sorry I did not explain myself properly. As far as the router, it would not have to act like the modem for the DSL. Yes I would like to have failover but would also be nice to have the combined with channel bonding. The MiFi says that it can be tethered through the USB on it to a phone or laptop.
I do have the Ubiquito Nanostation LocoM2 with a tp-link wireless access point. I use them to connect to the campground wifi and make my own wirerless accesspoint in and around the camper. With the Nanostation on a 20ft pole I can reach the campground wifi much better.
It would be nice to connect the MiFi and the camp wifi together as campgrounds a so slow.
But that is a different issue than originally asked. My DSL at home with Frontier is so bad. It is always disconnecting and reconnecting over and over. Was hoping to connect the Frontier DSL Modem/router to another Dual Wan Router with the Mifi. Most dual wan routers dont have wifi built in so would have to also use a wifi access point if I am thinking right.

 

[bill001g]

You could try the nanostation to connect to the mifi and then hook that to the wan port of a router. The nanaostation is actually a very advanced box. It might work in bridge/repeater mode, all depends on the mifi but it the mifi does not support repeater mode you can run the nanostation as a router.

There are quite a few dual wan routers that have wifi especially if you have a dsl modem box so the router does not need it.

I would suggest you just manually switch it back and forth rather than try for something fancy. How does the router really know the internet is down. If you connect a modem via ethernet the port will always be up even if you would disconnect the phone cable coming into the modem. What is even more likely is the connection just is really bad and is say losing half the traffic. At what point does the router switch and what point does it switch back. There are things you can set in dual wan routers but they do not always work so well.

This is why routing protocols exist but it not something a home user can do.

As stated you are not going to be able to combine them for more bandwidth. You are going to be lucky to get it to work primary/backup. Now you could assign some device on one and other device on the other but again it tends to be easier to just plug them into the proper router rather than trying to get a configuration that will do this.

 

[SamirD]

I've been working with dual and multi-wan setups since the mid-2000s.

Your challenge is simply getting all your Internet sources converted to a wired ethernet connection that you can put into a cisco rv016. The rv016 is an older model, and tops out routing around 40Mbps, but can take up to 7 wan connections simultaneously. It doesn't do channel bonding, but will round-robin the use of the different lines as you set up the weighting. This actually works quite well as a web page has hundreds of small elements, each of which end up getting downloaded simultaneously. This also works for uploading when you have multiple streams uploading simultaneously as it will assign streams to wans in round robin fashion as well. I used to use this exact set up with 3x cable modems back in the mid-2000s to have 24Mbs download and 1.5Mbps upload when top speeds available were 8/512k. It worked very, very well aside from having to reboot the router fairly regularly, but I made a script for that.

You can also bind certain applications to certain wans based on their destination address/IP so you can make it so email will be off a certain wan, etc. It's a powerful piece of equipment that used to be $500 back in the day. You can get more modern routers, but the only ones I've seen are by Watchguard and are enterprise level expensive, even when used. If the rv016 works for your setup, you can always upgrade to the Watchguard (which is what I use today with a 500/50 and 110/10 line.)

Hope this helps!

 

[wmrayt]

I've been working with dual and multi-wan setups since the mid-2000s.

Your challenge is simply getting all your Internet sources converted to a wired ethernet connection that you can put into a cisco rv016. The rv016 is an older model, and tops out routing around 40Mbps, but can take up to 7 wan connections simultaneously. It doesn't do channel bonding, but will round-robin the use of the different lines as you set up the weighting. This actually works quite well as a web page has hundreds of small elements, each of which end up getting downloaded simultaneously. This also works for uploading when you have multiple streams uploading simultaneously as it will assign streams to wans in round robin fashion as well. I used to use this exact set up with 3x cable modems back in the mid-2000s to have 24Mbs download and 1.5Mbps upload when top speeds available were 8/512k. It worked very, very well aside from having to reboot the router fairly regularly, but I made a script for that.

You can also bind certain applications to certain wans based on their destination address/IP so you can make it so email will be off a certain wan, etc. It's a powerful piece of equipment that used to be $500 back in the day. You can get more modern routers, but the only ones I've seen are by Watchguard and are enterprise level expensive, even when used. If the rv016 works for your setup, you can always upgrade to the Watchguard (which is what I use today with a 500/50 and 110/10 line.)

Hope this helps!

yes the big problem is getting the mifi wireless hotspot to link with a wired dual wan router. I am going to try the NanoStation m2 but not holding out much hope.

 

[Solandri]

yes the big problem is getting the mifi wireless hotspot to link with a wired dual wan router. I am going to try the NanoStation m2 but not holding out much hope.

The Nanostation M2 will do it. (Ignore that the link is titled long-range wireless. The distance to the wireless hotspot is irrelevant.) Connect your computer to the Nanostation via ethernet, put it into Station mode and follow these instructions. When you're done, plug the Nanostation into your dual WAN router.
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205197710-airMAX-Configure-a-Long-Range-WiFi-Client#4

Ubiquiti used to have a nice choose-your-own-adventure type guide where you'd click based on what you're trying to do, and it would lead you to the proper configuration instructions. But I can't seem to find it anymore. The above link was the closest I could find.

Note that in station mode (client mode), the Nanostation does not provide DHCP. You may have to manually set your computer's IP address to 192.168.1.2 in order to connect to the Nanostation at 192.168.1.1. If I remember correctly, that IP address does not change, even if the wireless network it's connected to has a different IP address range. If you want to be able to reconfigure the Nanostation over the network after this initial setup, you'll have to change its IP address (and your computer's during setup) to something in the MiFi wireless network's IP address range. Otherwise the only way to reconfigure it is to unplug the Nanostation from your network, plug it directly into your computer, then manually set the computer's IP to 192.168.1.2 and browse to 192.168.1.1.

 

[nigelivey]

You could look at equipment from Peplink.

 

[wmrayt]

You could look at equipment from Peplink.

I have a TP-link that I use with the Nanostation m2 when camping. But the TP-link only has wireless out as the access point in the camper and the Nanostation connecting to the Campground wifi.

 

[wmrayt]

The Nanostation M2 will do it. (Ignore that the link is titled long-range wireless. The distance to the wireless hotspot is irrelevant.) Connect your computer to the Nanostation via ethernet, put it into Station mode and follow these instructions. When you're done, plug the Nanostation into your dual WAN router.
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205197710-airMAX-Configure-a-Long-Range-WiFi-Client#4

Ubiquiti used to have a nice choose-your-own-adventure type guide where you'd click based on what you're trying to do, and it would lead you to the proper configuration instructions. But I can't seem to find it anymore. The above link was the closest I could find.

Note that in station mode (client mode), the Nanostation does not provide DHCP. You may have to manually set your computer's IP address to 192.168.1.2 in order to connect to the Nanostation at 192.168.1.1. If I remember correctly, that IP address does not change, even if the wireless network it's connected to has a different IP address range. If you want to be able to reconfigure the Nanostation over the network after this initial setup, you'll have to change its IP address (and your computer's during setup) to something in the MiFi wireless network's IP address range. Otherwise the only way to reconfigure it is to unplug the Nanostation from your network, plug it directly into your computer, then manually set the computer's IP to 192.168.1.2 and browse to 192.168.1.1.

Ok thanks, I will try this.

 

[nigelivey]

I have a TP-link that I use with the Nanostation m2 when camping. But the TP-link only has wireless out as the access point in the camper and the Nanostation connecting to the Campground wifi.

Have a look at the equipment from PEPLINK, You can have a mix of wireless WAN (connecting to the campground wifi) and LTE (4g dongles). Then you have wireless and hardwired LAN.

 

[wmrayt]

I have tried this. https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205197710-airMAX-Configure-a-Long-Range-WiFi-Client#4 Not working. The only thing I can not get to change is under Lan Network settings. Mine says Bridge and can not change to Lan0.

 

[Solandri]

I have tried this. https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205197710-airMAX-Configure-a-Long-Range-WiFi-Client#4 Not working. The only thing I can not get to change is under Lan Network settings. Mine says Bridge and can not change to Lan0.

I think I found the original instructions on Ubiquiti's site. The exact appearance of the dialog boxes and menus may be slightly different due to updates, but the general idea is the same. These are much more thorough than the abbreviated instructions in the first link I was able to find.

https://dl.ubnt.com/Nano_Quick_Set-up.pdf

 

[wmrayt]

I have tried the set up as in the link. No luck. No internet over the connection. I tried the Ubiquiti site and their forums. Only reply I got was from some ont wanting to help if I paid him. Nice.

 

[wmrayt]

Have a look at the equipment from PEPLINK, You can have a mix of wireless WAN (connecting to the campground wifi) and LTE (4g dongles). Then you have wireless and hardwired LAN.

Which peplink would you recommend? The first one that I see that takes cell is recommended for medium size businesses. And can not find a price without calling them. (never could understand putting road blocks between my product and the customer).

 

[wmrayt]

now Im receiving this when I run diag. and the test to see if fixed: "local area connection" does't have a valid IP configuration

 

[wmrayt]

Wondering since ubiquiti says that the M2 is not supported for wireless access point any longer if the software update has turned off some of the previously available functions. ON my Nanostation M2 main page at the bottom where all videos shows two connections with graphs showing the traffic one lan and one wan mine only shows lan. It never shows connection in DGHCP at bottom of page when clicking on it.