DUAL WAN - FIBER AND 5G - HELP

[BRYVZEE]

I feel I've turned the internet around finding a solution for this. But I feel my language barrier and lack of knowledge in the terms is getting in the way.

 

This is my current configuration:

Fiber ISP MODEM > Orbi Mesh System

 

My goal is to have:

My fiber connection as my main WAN + 5G Fail-over/Backup >  Router and Satellites

 

Main problems I'm encountering with this whole thing:

1. My Fiber connection is around 4,000Mbps UP/DOWN: I can't find any router with dual wan with more 2.5 gig per port. I'd have to deal with WAN aggregation which my ISP modem doesn't support.

2. I don't want balancing, i want a fail-over mode. I don't want to be using the 5G when not necessary to avoid excess costs.

3. I want a router/wireless solution that takes advantage of my actual speed. Right now i get around 1,000Mbps around the house. That's the max speed i get from the Orbi system. Which is fine but if i could future proof a bit it would be nice.

4. With the Orbi I have a mess of Network Switches and devices with multiple LAN cables plugged in it's just a mess. Want a cleaner solution.

5. The 5G solution must support an external antenna of some sort.

 

I live in Puerto Rico, and after a big hurricane I've dedicated myself to make my home a bunker, re-doing storm drains, solar and battery backups. I've kinda ignored my network for a while and want to have a decent solution.Any tips in the right direction is appreciated, I've been looking at every product for months and i cant find anything that fits my needs.

 

 

 

[Skiiwee29]

We used mikrotik routers for this when I did voip sites at my previous job to perform this exact function. You would plug both in and write a script that basically says use this unless you can't ping here then use this until it starts working again. 

[Falcon1986]

6 hours ago, BRYVZEE said:

I can't find any router with dual wan with more 2.5 gig per port. I'd have to deal with WAN aggregation which my ISP modem doesn't support.

What make/model of modem? Does the modem have LAN output to copper/ethernet or SFP?

 

6 hours ago, BRYVZEE said:

I don't want to be using the 5G when not necessary to avoid excess costs.

Who provides your 5G service?

 

6 hours ago, BRYVZEE said:

I want a router/wireless solution that takes advantage of my actual speed. Right now i get around 1,000Mbps around the house. That's the max speed i get from the Orbi system. Which is fine but if i could future proof a bit it would be nice.

Unfortunately, at the current state of WiFi technology, that's probably going to be the best you can get.

 

WiFi 6E APs can probably get you higher on the 6GHz band, but you'd have to have multiple APs (range is less than 5GHz) and clients that actually support it. WiFi 7 is still in development.

 

The problem is not just the WiFi side, but the router/switch being able to maintain WAN-to-LAN speeds that high. You'll need special hardware or you could just stick with what your ISP gave you and use a multi-gig switch.

 

Why exactly do you need 4Gbps? If you're paying for 4Gbps and only utilizing 1Gbps, you're throwing your money away. I'd downgrade and use the savings elsewhere.

[Tickletehpickle]

I had a similar set up, but instead I have mine configured as VDSL and Starlink set up in load balancing mode using PFsense. An old computer running PF/OPNSense would work in your use case. 

[BRYVZEE]

12 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

What make/model of modem? Does the modem have LAN output to copper/ethernet or SFP?

 

Who provides your 5G service?

 

Unfortunately, at the current state of WiFi technology, that's probably going to be the best you can get.

 

WiFi 6E APs can probably get you higher on the 6GHz band, but you'd have to have multiple APs (range is less than 5GHz) and clients that actually support it. WiFi 7 is still in development.

 

The problem is not just the WiFi side, but the router/switch being able to maintain WAN-to-LAN speeds that high. You'll need special hardware or you could just stick with what your ISP gave you and use a multi-gig switch.

 

Why exactly do you need 4Gbps? If you're paying for 4Gbps and only utilizing 1Gbps, you're throwing your money away. I'd downgrade and use the savings elsewhere.

My modem is the ISP provided one: DZS 5205P XGS-PON/10GS FiberLAN Desktop ONT  

 

My 5G provider is T-Mobile.

 

I figured, most I've seen around is 2,500 on the "GAMING TM" models with wifi 6E.

 

I have a couple wired conections to the PCs. So both computers are using a 5Gbps LAN straight to the modem for the speed, and another 1Gbps to the orbi system to just be able to access stuff within the network like casting, plex server, etc..

 

Use, my work requires a lot of large file downloads and uploads. Vectorworks, Wisiwig, Capture. Don't need 4gb  but my ISP upgraded me for no extra cost from 1GB a year ago or so. Plus it's a fun thing to have, watch games and media download in minutes on the PC.

[seanondemand]

I mean, anything’s possible as long as you’re willing to pay for it. As a home user guy, I lean ubiquiti - you could use a Dream Machine SE with one of these SFP+ to RJ45 transceivers to hook up to the modem, and then a UniFi Enterprise XG 24 to get 10gb Ethernet to everything, and then the LTE backup accessory for your failover. throw in a few U6 Enterprise access points for wifi 6e and you’re in business, for like, 3500 bucks by the time you’re said and done. 
 

2.5gb networking is expensive, 10gb networking is bonkers. 

[Donut417]

20 hours ago, BRYVZEE said:

Main problems I'm encountering with this whole thing:

1. My Fiber connection is around 4,000Mbps UP/DOWN: I can't find any router with dual wan with more 2.5 gig per port. I'd have to deal with WAN aggregation which my ISP modem doesn't support.

2. I don't want balancing, i want a fail-over mode. I don't want to be using the 5G when not necessary to avoid excess costs.

3. I want a router/wireless solution that takes advantage of my actual speed. Right now i get around 1,000Mbps around the house. That's the max speed i get from the Orbi system. Which is fine but if i could future proof a bit it would be nice.

4. With the Orbi I have a mess of Network Switches and devices with multiple LAN cables plugged in it's just a mess. Want a cleaner solution.

5. The 5G solution must support an external antenna of some sort.

1) 5 Gbps stuff is not very common, so it might be a situation where you build a PFsesne box with the ports you need. I believe 5 Gig cards are hell of expensive. The ONT looks to have a 10 Gig port, maybe that might be the way to go as 10 Gig cards have been out for a while and might be cheaper.  I believe that should cover number 2 as well as Im pretty sure fail over shouldn't be to hard.

3) PFsense doesnt really do WiFi, so some wireless AP's would probably help.

4) If you dont mind running cabling, just have a central switch that everything plugs in to. PFsesne doesnt do the switch part that well either, so you would need a switch anyway. 

5) Noticed you said T Mobile, their gateway does NOT support exttneral antennas. You are NOT allowed to use any other equipment other than their gateway. I have seen people who have modded the gateway to provide some kinda of external solution,  but understand that doing so means you will have to pay T Mobile for this gateway if you choose to cancel service.  

 

Just take note that T Mobile uses CGNAT, so any solution you choose you will have triple NAT when running on T Mobile's network. As their gateway doesnt do bridge mode from my understanding. 

[BRYVZEE]

 

Thank you for the information, good to know about T-Mobile. Kinda sucky on their part.

I think I'm gonna go with the Unify system. This helped a lot.

[seanondemand]

18 minutes ago, BRYVZEE said:

 

Thank you for the information, good to know about T-Mobile. Kinda sucky on their part.

I think I'm gonna go with the Unify system. This helped a lot.

If you decide to go Unifi, the LTE backup is AT&T only (as far as I know) anyway. 

[BRYVZEE]

11 minutes ago, seanondemand said:

If you decide to go Unifi, the LTE backup is AT&T only (as far as I know) anyway. 

Yes, I saw. I think what I will end up doing is along the lines of what Donut spoke about. And use the T-Mobile gateway, although in Puerto Rico using their locked gateway isn't the only option, Ive heard. plug it through the Ethernet port and configure everything on the gateway

 

Sadly AT&T is no longer available in Puerto Rico, it got bough out by Liberty and it went down hill from there.

[Bdavis]

The dream machine pro and pro SE have a wan throughput limit of 3.5gb/s when IDS/IPS. Just be aware of that limitation. You're pushing the limits of ubiquiti routers. The only other option I would consider is a netgate router rated for the correct throughput, or pfsense build with similar specs to the netgate.

[Deepspacecow]

17 hours ago, seanondemand said:

I mean, anything’s possible as long as you’re willing to pay for it. As a home user guy, I lean ubiquiti - you could use a Dream Machine SE with one of these SFP+ to RJ45 transceivers to hook up to the modem, and then a UniFi Enterprise XG 24 to get 10gb Ethernet to everything, and then the LTE backup accessory for your failover. throw in a few U6 Enterprise access points for wifi 6e and you’re in business, for like, 3500 bucks by the time you’re said and done. 
 

2.5gb networking is expensive, 10gb networking is bonkers. 

10g networking ia very cheap if you go used. You can get pcie3.0 nics for ~$20-$30. I use an edgecore as4610-54p ($80 on ebay). 48 poe 1g for the WAPs, and 4 sfp+ for the computers. I dont really use those features because my parents wont let me drill holes in the walls though.