@ajornada 

I finally had some time to play around with this tonight.  The ER605 I had laying around had an older firmware from 2022 loaded, and it actually worked as we are expecting and there was no data usage on the backup WAN.  In fact, it disabled the backup WAN entirely and on the 'System Status' screen, you would see only dashes present for the backup WAN status info.  This is also the same behavior that I covered in my video on the older TLR600VPN model.  This is proof TP-Link has clearly changed something in the firmware since last year that is causing this issue.  Hopefully they will find it and correct in a future firmware update!

I went ahead and upgraded the firmware to 2.2.2 Build 20231017 Rel.68869 to see if your method works.  In the end, I would like to use these ER605 models in our POS system installations and not have to hunt down older TLR600VPN models in order to have a metered connection as the backup WAN.  

Unfortunately it did not work after the firmware update and configuring exactly as you described. it is still using a lot of data on the backup WAN even when the primary is online and stable.  In 'Traffic Statistics' it will show dashes for either Rx or Tx, but never both.  Mostly the traffic is Rx.  

The only difference between your setup and mine, is that my backup WAN is not a USB modem, it is a OptConnect which is 5G, but uses a ethernet cable rather than USB.  I suspect that if I tried your config with a USB modem, it would work!  

  @Corbryant I haven't watched the video because I'm at work however I just want to confirm something.

• You've got 2 WAN connections into an ER605
• You've configured both connections with the load balancing set to 100:1 (Highest number being higher priority IE WAN1)
• Always link primary is enabled
• You've setup a route policy that states to use WAN1 unless WAN1 is down, then use WAN2.

With all that, you're still seeing a couple of MB/s going through the fail over connection?

Does the metered connection not have an allowance for 500MB to 1GB or more to go through it in a month before it costs an arm and a leg? Post paid or pre-paid?

Reaper_1994 wrote

  @Corbryant I haven't watched the video because I'm at work however I just want to confirm something.

 

• You've got 2 WAN connections into an ER605
• You've configured both connections with the load balancing set to 100:1 (Highest number being higher priority IE WAN1)
• Always link primary is enabled
• You've setup a route policy that states to use WAN1 unless WAN1 is down, then use WAN2.

 

 

With all that, you're still seeing a couple of MB/s going through the fail over connection?

Does the metered connection not have an allowance for 500MB to 1GB or more to go through it in a month before it costs an arm and a leg? Post paid or pre-paid?

  @Reaper_1994 

So I noticed you were using an Omada controller or software and I have been doing this using the ER605 in standalone mode.  I went ahead and deployed the Omada software and set everything as you suggested.  It's still pulling some data through the backup WAN, about 5MB per day.  That is far less than it was using before, so it just might work out like this.  

I still find it odd that other variances of the ER605 which use basically the same firmware treat the backup WAN completely differently.  In my video, I show how it completely disables the backup WAN until I down the primary WAN.  I've had those units out in the field for months and they've used absolutely no data.  (Shrug)