[SOLVED] WISP router with operational local network when WISP is down

[dlleno]

Hi.

I'm out to find a WISP capable WiFi router that provides a reliable local network (for resource sharing) even when the WISP itself is down and no connection to the public internet is available. Does such a device exist?

 

[bill001g]

Pretty much all routers ?

The connection to a wisp is generally some form of radio mounted on the room that connects to your router via a ethernet cable. It hooks to a wan port on a router like any other "modem".

The lan ports on the router act as a switch and will allow communication even is the wan is down.

 

[dlleno]

That's what I thought....tp link gave me a bum steer they said their wisp routers won't work in wisp mode without the wisp . In that case they should still switch and the local wifi network should still function . I do need something tolerant of badly behaving wisps and hotel login pages though...

 

[bill001g]

Some so called wisp routers are actually just repeaters. Those there maybe wifi restrictions.

A device would needed dedicated radio chips for the wan port. Those so called travel routers are not actually wisp routers in many cases.

 

[dlleno]

so you're saying rather than looking for a router with a built-in "wisp mode", one can connect pretty much any router to a WISP by adding a radio device to the WAN port. more accurately called, "WiFi as WAN" I guess. where does one find such (radio) devices?

 

[bill001g]

You likely could use many of the extender/repeater things they sell. What you are actually looking for is a client bridge. Those device can generally have a mode that lets them run simple client-bridge mode. Used to be very common when tv and game consoles only had ethernet ports. When they are used for a actual WISP they most times use a direction outdoor bridge to get more distance. It all depends on your exact requirement.

 

[dlleno]

ok its getting clearer. add WISP mode to any wireless router by adding something like this to the WAN port.

https://www.newegg.com/tp-link-cpe2...re=wireless_bridge poe-_-33-704-231-_-Product

separate components is better . if the router has PoE all the better

 

[bill001g]

I have not seen that particular box but that is what you are looking for.

The key problem is you need a dedicated radio chip to talk to the WISP. You then need another device with wifi radios to talk to your end devices. If you were just needed a ethernet connected devices you can sometime use just a switch with some of those wisp radios. That one has the ability to also run as a router.

 

[dlleno]

ok thanks for the calibration. looks like WiFi access points are also capable (depending on the mfg) of becoming a "WiFi as WAN" or WISP client device. but yes you are spot on I assumed that these "WISP mode" routers would have two radios but I can see that this may not be the case. FYI I'm looking for a way for my RV to connect to "campground WiFi" but broadcast this connection over a new SSID with NAT to the inside of the RV.

unfortunately, I'm guessing not many routers enable PoE on their WAN port! but this one comes with an injector ...

 

[dlleno]

ok I now have a different but related question ,so let me re-state my expanded goals now and ask what is the best way to accomplish this

Goal is a new network with both WiFi (phones and computers) and ethernet clients (a NAS). Easily accomplished with most any WiFI router I get that. my WISP questions have to do with the fact that when one is available I would like to connect to it. this is a network, btw, that will live in my RV, which means that when the RV is at my house I want to be able to bridge the RV network to my home network.

I would like the access to be controlled so that when i'm on the road connected to a WISP ,my network is not exposed to anyone else on the WISP. conversely, however, when that WISP is my home WiFi network, I want it to bridge in. It does look like the CPE 210 or CPE 510 from tp-link will do this, but is there a better way?

 

[bill001g]

It is going be kinda messy. The simplest way is to always use the tplink devices as bridges.

You then plug this into the wan port of a router and you have your primary solution for the RV. It is completely protected by the router,

Although non standard I would change the lan IP on your rv router to something other than the default x.x.x.1 I would set it to x.x.x.254. Set the x.x.x part to match your home network. To avoid a possible conflict with some random rv park I would change the x.x.x to something like 192.168.123.x. This will require you to change both your home network and the rv network.

This is all to make switching back and forth easier, ie you don't have to make a lot of changes.

So to hook to your home network you would change the rv router to run in AP mode. This maybe all you need to do. Key is the DHCP server function must be disabled in the rv router. Putting it into AP mode should do this automatically but you need to check otherwise manually disable it.

 

[dlleno]

ok this isn't so bad. I already have a ubiquity network in my house that is non-standard ipv4 class C subnet.

to make this even simpler -- if the RV router stayed in WISP mode, and used the ubiquity home network as the WISP, then the RV router would have access to all the same resources that the ubiquity Wireless network specified . I already have this segmented out by SSID, so that iOT devices can't access what they don't need. In this case the RV router would have access to my home network, but not vice versa. that may be good enough, just to keep this even simpler.

maybe what I need is the peplink Surf SOHO Mk 3 -- a wireless router with built-in WISP access to external campground WiFi. Then, when my home network is "campground WiFi" the RV network will have access to what it needs.