LTE Internet + ASUS Home Router

wyliec2

Splendid
Apr 4, 2014
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I am trying to find an alternative to the very poor DSL service I currently have. There are no wired/cable/fiber options aside from the 1.5Mbps DSL which often drops below .4 Mbps download speed.

I have a complex home network 15+ wired devices and 10+ wireless devices. I have an ASUS RT-N66U router with private and guest 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz wireless networks. I have several smart switches downstream from the ASUS router to provide connectivity to all of the wired devices. I have a Windows 2012 Server that I use as a Media Server and to do nightly backups on the various Windows devices. The Windows Server needs to be the DHCP host for my home network.

So I have been looking at Verizon LTE internet service - I originally thought I could install the LTE service in place of the DSL modem and use the same functionality with my ASUS router - I would just have a different pipe to the internet. As I have investigated the Verizon option I'm finding that this does not seem all that straightforward - there are device limits and requirements to use a Verizon LTE router that may preclude keeping my home network as-is.

The staff at the local Verizon store could not say if or how I might accomplish this...

Any expertise from this forum would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
dd-wrt say wip which means it is really new. You never know if they will figure out the drivers. Sometime they never do.

You could run a second lte router behind your. I would not worry about the double nat. Almost all mobile broadband systems use carrier nat so you will in effect always be behind their NAT router. This means anything that requires port forwarding will not work on a mobile broadband
You can likely use verizon lte with your router. The hard part is finding which USB dongle work with which software releases. First you need to be sure you have the latest stock firmware. There is a list of supported modem on asus site. The next step up is a cut down version of dd-wrt called asuswrt..there is asuswrt merlin also which is not directly asus. This supports a few more devices. Then the final option is the full blown dd-wrt image. This has the largest selection of usb modems.

It is mostly digging though the lists and finding a USB modem you can obtain in your area that works on the router. It is getting better than it was a year ago but it still takes some research but I suspect you can accomplish what you want.

Before you spend lots of money be sure you test with a phone or something that you get enough signal. Many times you must put the router in the window to get good results. The only other issue is verizon tends to be kinda expensive to use as a internet connection....unless you one of those lucky few who have the old grandfathered unlimited contracts
 

wyliec2

Splendid
Apr 4, 2014
214
40
21,890


Thanks for the reply. I am currently using the latest WRTMerlin firmware but I haven't been able to figure out if it works for the current Verizon U620L USB modem. When I go into the GUI I don't see the U620L listed. The ASUS USB Modem list seems pretty old. I have been doing searches for U620L support but have only found a couple of other people asking the same question...

When I use my phone as a hotspot for my laptop or my wife's phone we get great performance - 20 to 100 times the DSL speed we have!! I think any LTE solution should work pretty well if I could figure out what that solution is...

I have seen people talking about using the LTE Home router and doing some NAT/Port forwarding and keeping the LTE and ASUS routers on different subnets and the ASUS in the DMZ. I'm familiar with these terms but not a network engineer by any means - the USB modem seems like the simple solution if I can determine compatibility...
 
dd-wrt say wip which means it is really new. You never know if they will figure out the drivers. Sometime they never do.

You could run a second lte router behind your. I would not worry about the double nat. Almost all mobile broadband systems use carrier nat so you will in effect always be behind their NAT router. This means anything that requires port forwarding will not work on a mobile broadband
 
Solution