stuartm19
Member
New to the forum, apologies if this question has been asked and answered elsewhere. I searched but couldn't find anything recent or relevant. I also apologise for the length of this post!
I'm moving to a new rural property where a fixed line connection is non-existent, however I'm a software engineer working from home and need a reliable and reasonable connection at all times. I'm opting for Starlink as the primary connectivity but I need a 4G/5G backup for the times when Starlink's current coverage causes drop-outs.
The issue is that I'm not finding a lot of routers that support automatic failover to 4G/5G and which don't compromise significantly on the other router features. In particular external antenna connections are a MUST - the property has 2 foot thick red sandstone walls, it's essentially a giant Faraday cage. Mast mounted antennas are the only way to go. It's worth noting that I'm not looking for overall best performance here, while that would be nice to have, functionality trumps over squeezing out a few extra Mbps.
So far in my research, only the two Netgear 4G options seem to fit the criteria and of those, the Orbi (LBR20) seems like the better option as I want/need mesh wifi on the interior. I don't need the wifi to be provided by the router but obviously there may be some overall cost benefit if it is included. I don't hate Netgear, but I do wonder if I'm missing a better alternative?
I've been told by someone that the Huawai CPE Pro 2 is the way to go, with an external antenna modification however I check and Huawai have explicitly said their device does NOT support failover. So for me that's a non-starter, besides which, the price, the voided warranty as a result of modification and dozens of user comments about features disappearing with firmware updates has given me zero confidence in that hardware.
I'm willing to consider hardware that can be flashed with open source firmware to provide a failover option, if it meets the requirements, however this would need to be a reliable/stable option. I'm perfectly capable of managing such a solution, it's just that I don't want to be wasting my weekends/free time fighting to keep things working.
Lastly, I'm also certain that some combination of enterprise grade equipment could provide what I want. However I'm not willing to spend thousands when there is consumer grade hardware that is 'good enough' for a fraction of the cost.
If you managed to make it through all of that and have some suggestions I would be very happy to hear from you!
I'm moving to a new rural property where a fixed line connection is non-existent, however I'm a software engineer working from home and need a reliable and reasonable connection at all times. I'm opting for Starlink as the primary connectivity but I need a 4G/5G backup for the times when Starlink's current coverage causes drop-outs.
The issue is that I'm not finding a lot of routers that support automatic failover to 4G/5G and which don't compromise significantly on the other router features. In particular external antenna connections are a MUST - the property has 2 foot thick red sandstone walls, it's essentially a giant Faraday cage. Mast mounted antennas are the only way to go. It's worth noting that I'm not looking for overall best performance here, while that would be nice to have, functionality trumps over squeezing out a few extra Mbps.
So far in my research, only the two Netgear 4G options seem to fit the criteria and of those, the Orbi (LBR20) seems like the better option as I want/need mesh wifi on the interior. I don't need the wifi to be provided by the router but obviously there may be some overall cost benefit if it is included. I don't hate Netgear, but I do wonder if I'm missing a better alternative?
I've been told by someone that the Huawai CPE Pro 2 is the way to go, with an external antenna modification however I check and Huawai have explicitly said their device does NOT support failover. So for me that's a non-starter, besides which, the price, the voided warranty as a result of modification and dozens of user comments about features disappearing with firmware updates has given me zero confidence in that hardware.
I'm willing to consider hardware that can be flashed with open source firmware to provide a failover option, if it meets the requirements, however this would need to be a reliable/stable option. I'm perfectly capable of managing such a solution, it's just that I don't want to be wasting my weekends/free time fighting to keep things working.
Lastly, I'm also certain that some combination of enterprise grade equipment could provide what I want. However I'm not willing to spend thousands when there is consumer grade hardware that is 'good enough' for a fraction of the cost.
If you managed to make it through all of that and have some suggestions I would be very happy to hear from you!























