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Naive question about mesh WiFi system (probably) and backup router.

Evanz

Pro Member
As a complete mobile internet idiot, I’d appreciate it if someone could put me right about the following issue.

I’ve got 2 4g routers, a Huawei b818 263, which is my main device, with an unlimited EE SIM inside, connected to a TP Link Deco M5 mesh system. They’re in router mode, and the Huawei is in bridge mode. I’ve also got a Three 4g+ hub, which is my backup device in case EE or the router goes tits up for awhile.

My question is, if the above happens at some point, can I just unplug the Huawei from the M5 master Deco, and then plug the Three 4g+ hub into it, and use the network I’ve created for the Huawei to beam the internet around the house, or is that just stupid?

Also, I’ve been hearing about load balancing routers, which if I’m not mistaken, would allow one router to automatically take over if the other one goes down - is that something worth thinking about, or would it be overkill for my situation?
 
My question is, if the above happens at some point, can I just unplug the Huawei from the M5 master Deco, and then plug the Three 4g+ hub into it, and use the network I’ve created for the Huawei to beam the internet around the house, or is that just stupid?
Yes, so long as the Deco WAN is set for DHCP then it'll pick up an IP and gateway from whatever internet capable device you plug in.
Also, I’ve been hearing about load balancing routers, which if I’m not mistaken, would allow one router to automatically take over if the other one goes down - is that something worth thinking about, or would it be overkill for my situation?

Not necessarily overkill, it would ease the burden of switching when your primary drops but there is a learning curve involved with that. It would also be an additional router between you 4G system and your Decos
 
Yes, so long as the Deco WAN is set for DHCP then it'll pick up an IP and gateway from whatever internet capable device you plug in.


Not necessarily overkill, it would ease the burden of switching when your primary drops but there is a learning curve involved with that. It would also be an additional router between you 4G system and your Decos
Thanks for that Dazmatic, I thought it might be a bit more complicated than that, but it’s good to know I can just swap an Ethernet plug.
As far as load balancing goes, you preempted my other question, which was about plugging the load balancing router into the Deco. Would it cause any problems?
 
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Thanks for that Dazmatic, I thought it might be a bit more complicated than that, but it’s good to know I can just swap an Ethernet plug.
As far as load balancing goes, you preempted my other question, which was about plugging the load balancing router into the Deco. Would it cause any problems?
Technically, if your not hosting any services at home and just purely want internet access, it'd be fine. Might have to be a little careful with consoles etc as they can get a little funny with so many routers/ports etc.

Ideally, you'd set the load balancer as the main gateway and set the decos in AP mode but that's obviously something else to learn and set up.
 
If one of the mobile routers has a WAN port, it's quite likely it at least supports fail-over when checking the manual. This would likely be automated so avoids recabling. Fail-over to WiFi is another feature some mobile routers have (in principle to fail-over to home WiFi but no distinction is made failing over to a second mobile router or even a mobile hotspot).

Better devices will have active-active load-balancing.
 
If one of the mobile routers has a WAN port, it's quite likely it at least supports fail-over when checking the manual. This would likely be automated so avoids recabling. Fail-over to WiFi is another feature some mobile routers have (in principle to fail-over to home WiFi but no distinction is made failing over to a second mobile router or even a mobile hotspot).

Better devices will have active-active load-balancing.
Could you break that down a bit for me please mikeliuk? Are you saying I don’t necessarily need a load balancing router for failover?
 
Could you break that down a bit for me please mikeliuk? Are you saying I don’t necessarily need a load balancing router for failover?
Yes, you don't necessarily need a router capable of load-balancing in order to have a router capable of fail-over.

An example is the Netgear MR1100 with one WAN port that can fail-over to wired WAN or home WiFi. I don't recall if it preferred the wired connection or whether it was configurable whether the SIM was the primary or secondary connection.

Worth checking your device manuals to see if fail-over is supported.
 
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Would the TP Link Omada VPN router do the job? It’s cheap and gets decent reviews.
If you connected up the Huawei b818 263 WAN port, what options do you see in the management page regarding whether the Huawei will use internet access via the WAN, versus using the SIM?

It's worth checking if you need another device or whether one of your devices can already perform fail-over or load-balancing. I die a little inside every time I hear TP-Link being mentioned.

1685959570342.png
 
Would the TP Link Omada system do the job? It’s cheap and gets decent reviews.
If you connected up the Huawei b818 263 WAN port, what options do you see in the management page regarding whether the Huawei will use internet access via the WAN, versus using the SIM?

It's worth checking if you need another device or whether one of your devices can already perform fail-over or load-balancing. I die a little inside every time I hear TP-Link being mentioned.

View attachment 6705
I'll try that later when I'm at home. One thing I do remember is that there's an ethernet setting and next to it a drop down menu with 'LAN only'.

Are TP Link really that bad? Ubiquity do somethings called the Edge X router, which I think does the same sort of thing and is very cheap (45 quid - ish on Amazon).
 
TP - Omada stuff is fine for home use and easy to set up. I have a few running in commercial environment's with no issues at all. Your topology needs to be something like this. Lan from 4G modem(s) goes into the WAN port(s) on the Router. Set the Omada for failover then connect the Deco and other devices to the Lan port(s). Change the Deco to Access point mode. Job done 👍
 
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TP - Omada stuff is fine for home use and easy to set up. I have a few running in commercial environment's with no issues at all. Your topology needs to be something like this. Lan from 4G modem(s) goes into the WAN port(s) on the Router. Set the Omada for failover then connect the Deco and other devices to the Lan port(s). Change the Deco to Access point mode. Job done 👍
Thanks YorkieBar.
 

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Some screenshots of when I connected an ethernet cable between the WAN/LAN port on the Huawei 818 and the Three 4g+ hub. The Huawei and Decos started beaming the 3 signal around the house.
Do the Huawei and Three Hub have disjoint subnets in the LAN? For example, the Huawei might use 192.168.X.1/24 and the Three Hub might use 192.168.Y.1/24. What you don't want is overlapping LAN subnets. Looking again, the Three Hub (192.168.1.254/24) seems to use the subnet 192.168.1.0/24 so the Huawei should use a different subnet in its LAN to allow sane routing between the two routers.

Without knowing exactly what those screenshots are, it feels like the Huawei WAN is able to take an IP address in the Three Hub LAN so the question is what configuration options are there in the Huawei given that it is dual-WAN (internal SIM modem plus external WAN which happens to go to the Three Hub LAN).

There might be non-configurable fail-over when the external WAN is used as long as it's up or connected. More configurable might be a monitor IP set so the external WAN is only used when some IP such as 8.8.8.8 is accessible. Ideally, you should be able to choose whether the Huawei or the Three Hub is the primary gateway.

The ideal case is that the Huawei could load-balance between its internal WAN and the external WAN.

If one is stuck, the key question to ask is what the Huawei will do with the external WAN now that it has that connected. Will it prefer to use the external WAN assuming it's the house WiFi, or will it prefer the internal modem/SIM as the primary connection, and is there any configurability to choose between the two possible connections.
 
Do the Huawei and Three Hub have disjoint subnets in the LAN? For example, the Huawei might use 192.168.X.1/24 and the Three Hub might use 192.168.Y.1/24. What you don't want is overlapping LAN subnets. Looking again, the Three Hub (192.168.1.254/24) seems to use the subnet 192.168.1.0/24 so the Huawei should use a different subnet in its LAN to allow sane routing between the two routers.

Without knowing exactly what those screenshots are, it feels like the Huawei WAN is able to take an IP address in the Three Hub LAN so the question is what configuration options are there in the Huawei given that it is dual-WAN (internal SIM modem plus external WAN which happens to go to the Three Hub LAN).

There might be non-configurable fail-over when the external WAN is used as long as it's up or connected. More configurable might be a monitor IP set so the external WAN is only used when some IP such as 8.8.8.8 is accessible. Ideally, you should be able to choose whether the Huawei or the Three Hub is the primary gateway.

The ideal case is that the Huawei could load-balance between its internal WAN and the external WAN.

If one is stuck, the key question to ask is what the Huawei will do with the external WAN now that it has that connected. Will it prefer to use the external WAN assuming it's the house WiFi, or will it prefer the internal modem/SIM as the primary connection, and is there any configurability to choose between the two possible connections.
The screenshots are of the Ethernet settings and Ethernet status and the only options I can see are in the drop down menu in the settings. There doesn’t seem to be much else to see regarding LANS and WANS.
I’ll have a deeper dig later, but I’ve ordered a TP Link TL-R605 SafeStream Gigabit Multi-WAN VPN Router from Amazon and see if I can sidestep all the potential complications.
 
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