Boosting rural broadband - Dual 4G routers?

[jdwoodbury]

Hi Folks,

Does anyone have any experience of combining 4G access to build a more resilient and higher bandwidth internet connection? I am looking at a property were I know fixed line access is poor but it does have decent external 4G signal, the house currently has 4G internet access provided by 3. As myself and my partner work from home we need to get the best performing network we can. I am not sure if a dual SIM 4G router would actually load share or just offer failover resilience, or maybe I stick with 2 x access routers from alternate providers and then combine into my own router?

I would welcome any thought from folks that have tried the same for rural properties or businesses.

JD

[arcturus]

Your profile suggests you are in Worcestershire. Is that where your new place is? If so you might be able to get a service from Airband who are a wireless ISP in the area. Our fixed line broadband is rubbish but we get 30Mbps via a microwave link from Airband in the middle of nowhere. Might be something else to consider.

[jdwoodbury]

Yeah already checked them but they don't cover the postcode yet. I was looking at the 4G option as speed is ok today (varies from 8-22Mbps download), but with 2 heavy video conferencing users is can struggle. I would like some reliability also if 1 provider mast is unavailable as this does happen from time to time...and with any luck 5G is just around the corner.

[theboss]

arcturus said:

Your profile suggests you are in Worcestershire. Is that where your new place is? If so you might be able to get a service from Airband who are a wireless ISP in the area. Our fixed line broadband is rubbish but we get 30Mbps via a microwave link from Airband in the middle of nowhere. Might be something else to consider.

I get a 40Mbps service from Airband in Shropshire, which I combine with a 50-60Mbps 4G service from Vodafone via a dedicated router and external antenna.

Over the last year I would take 4G all day long, it's been miles more reliable with packet loss lesser by a factor of 10. Airband have had real problems with backhaul reliability and support, but in the last week they have performed some maintenance and its resulted in a night-and-day different - nice low latency and virtually zero packet loss.

It's useful having both though - outbound TCP connections are load balanced equally and if one goes down everything fails to the other. If I have a multi-path TCP aware client I can download at 90-95Mbps, which isn't bad for a middle of the nowhere property with no prospect of FTTP any time soon. Last quote I had for a leased line had a £112k installation excess charge.

Edited by theboss on Tuesday 28th July 23:07

[PushedDover]

Go all in 4G surely ?

I was in a place where the broadband lousy, but an external aerial on 4g had me at 60Mb up and down.
I binned off the landline, the land broadband and rental of course after running both in parallel for 3 months.

The 4G was solid. nothing to fear. and brilliant.

[Paul Drawmer]

Try the coverage from Voneus rural microwave

https://www.voneus.com/

[skilly1]

We use 3 mobile 4g sim at work for our whole site - 1 shop, office and restaurant. 3 allow 300gb data for £20 per month. We use around 160gb per month.
I just put the sim in a HUAWEI sim router.
Been flawless for 12 months, apart from the last 2 weeks - solution - Hard reset the router, not 3’s fault.
Speed is between 14-20mbs

[jdwoodbury]

theboss said:

I get a 40Mbps service from Airband in Shropshire, which I combine with a 50-60Mbps 4G service from Vodafone via a dedicated router and external antenna.

Very interested to know how you combine your 2 ISP's, do you do this via a hardware or software solution?

[NorthDave]

I think you would need a separate router for each 4G SIM (ideally with aerial to the roof to maximise your signal for each) and then you would run the ethernet from each router out in to a load balancing router. I'd be pretty sure Asus or the higher end Unifi kit will do what you need.

The aerial on the roof for each 4G implementation would be key for me - a small amount of effort to make sure you are getting the best possible signal.

[skilly1]

Depends on your budget but there are specific routers which will take up to 6 sim cards, load balance and also failsafe.

https://www.wiredbroadcast.com/products.html#card-...

https://www.perle.com/products/routers-gateways/?g...

[theboss]

jdwoodbury said:

Very interested to know how you combine your 2 ISP's, do you do this via a hardware or software solution?

I use a Ubiquiti USG but there are a lot of dual WAN capable routers on the market

It’s pretty seamless when it fails over - as I said Airband has been particularly flakey - so it’s handy when my VDI sessions and teams meetings pause for a few seconds then resume seamlessly whilst I get an email saying it failed over.

I thought Vodafone would be used as a backup but it’s been perfectly good as a primary connection. I have put 500+ GB a month across a £25 SIM and experienced no throttling or restrictions.

I get good EE here so would be interested in trying that too some time.

Note you don’t often get the benefit of the aggregate bandwidth unless you use software which is establishing many sessions which get distributed across the WAN ports. It is handy for improved reliability or on the other hand you could go for segregation and route kids devices over a separate link to the one you use...

[rfsteel]

jdwoodbury said:

Very interested to know how you combine your 2 ISP's, do you do this via a hardware or software solution?

I'm using a TP TL-ER5120 router that allows 4 external routers to be run concurrently, the ISP routers need to be able to run IP Pass through to prevent Double NATing issues.

Along with the TL-ER5120, I have a Billion 8800 NL R2 connected to Vodafone ADSL, then a Netgear Air Card running a Three 4G and a Netgear LB2120 with an EE 4G SIM.

Been running the above setup for over 2 years now with no adverse issues.

[theboss]

rfsteel said:

I'm using a TP TL-ER5120 router that allows 4 external routers to be run concurrently, the ISP routers need to be able to run IP Pass through to prevent Double NATing issues.

Along with the TL-ER5120, I have a Billion 8800 NL R2 connected to Vodafone ADSL, then a Netgear Air Card running a Three 4G and a Netgear LB2120 with an EE 4G SIM.

Been running the above setup for over 2 years now with no adverse issues.

I don’t bother with IP pass-through as I figure the LTE connections are CG-NAT’d anyway and it’s handy sometimes to be able to unplug the LTE router and use it as a portable (I already have 7 sims on my account and don’t want more!) without reconfiguring it.

I haven’t run into any problems with these double NAT and CG-NAT limitations do apps and protocols must have gotten better at dealing with it.

[jdwoodbury]

Some great info here...thanks folks, I have some research to do.

[Troubleatmill]

A Poynting Directional antenna will more likely boost your signal strength and speed.

[rfsteel]

theboss said:

I don’t bother with IP pass-through as I figure the LTE connections are CG-NAT’d anyway and it’s handy sometimes to be able to unplug the LTE router and use it as a portable (I already have 7 sims on my account and don’t want more!) without reconfiguring it.

I haven’t run into any problems with these double NAT and CG-NAT limitations do apps and protocols must have gotten better at dealing with it.

Thinking back, double NAT was an issue when trying to get a Plex server to work, I found Three use NAT when using the 3internet APN, where as EE are only CG-NAT.

So IP pass-through is only a must if you need a remote connection back into your network,

[threadlock]

Those of you using 4G.... Do you get better speeds through your network kit (with an antenna etc.) than you do with your phones?

A speedtest holding my phone just outside an upstairs window gives me 25d / 20u, which isn't really a big enough improvement over my 16d FTTC landline to be worth the cost/hassle. But we don't need the landline and these speeds of 60d/u per SIM that you're quoting are appealing.

[PushedDover]

Troubleatmill said:

A Poynting Directional antenna will more likely boost your signal strength and speed.

This and why I think the OP is overthinking it.

I had crap rural broadband with EE.
I got a 4G EE Modem. In the window sill it was 9mb up and down
For a £100 they arranged for a man with a van to come and stick a plastic box the size of a telephone book on the wall and aim it in the right way.
II then had 60Mb down and 45mb Up average.

I binned off the rural broadband, set up an IP Phone account (courtesy of knowledge here on PH) and had for £20 a month a solid fast internet connection and the equivalent of a land line / handset.

No line rental etc,..

A decent 4G modem with aerial and a set of Deco Mesh pucks around the house was game changing for us and the working from home.

[RobDickinson]

Chill out for starlink next year?

[theboss]

rfsteel said:

theboss said:

I don’t bother with IP pass-through as I figure the LTE connections are CG-NAT’d anyway and it’s handy sometimes to be able to unplug the LTE router and use it as a portable (I already have 7 sims on my account and don’t want more!) without reconfiguring it.

I haven’t run into any problems with these double NAT and CG-NAT limitations do apps and protocols must have gotten better at dealing with it.

Thinking back, double NAT was an issue when trying to get a Plex server to work, I found Three use NAT when using the 3internet APN, where as EE are only CG-NAT.

So IP pass-through is only a must if you need a remote connection back into your network,

Yeah you’re absolutely right and I heard 3 used NAT. Their signal is non-existent here though

Personally I have this sorted as I have a fixed public IP from Airband but the upstream bandwidth isn’t really enough for Plex so I’ve left that disabled and have had no need for static IP any more. I use my brother’s Plex server off his FTTP instead!

If you only had Voda / EE / O2 LTE and no fixed services then you are stuck with CG-NAT which could cause some people a headache.