Broadband woes in lockdown - Archer MR600 4G+ load-balanced solution with ADSL
Hi Guys,
Here is my setup at home if anyone is interested?
I originally only had ADSL at home but because of the lockdown I needed to come up with something else to give me and the others enough bandwidth to use and live with.
I decided on a 4G Max mobile broadband SIM from Vodafone and tried several 4G routers before deciding that the Archer MR600 router was the best for me. I also purchased an Eightwood 4G antenna and installed in the loft with the Archer MR600 router.
The Archer MR600 router has beta firmware installed, so I can configure which bands to use for 4G+.
I then had to come up with a solution to use both of the ADSL and 4G links and make it resilient incase one of them failed. Funny enough the solution was a TL-R470T+ load balancing router. This allows me to load-balance traffic using the bandwidth available on both links. It looks like I currently get 3:1 load-balancing ratio in favour of the 4G. You can also configure online WAN detection for each link, so if one goes down the traffic is re-routed over the other.
I pretty much only use the firewall as an 8 port switch, but it is occasionally handy to look at the firewall logs to work out what's happening when something isn't quite working as expected?
I also have a WiFi mesh setup which works really well
CheerZ
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If your download-speed is only around 70Mbps I'm wondering why didn't you choose the MR6400 (or the MR100) instead that is half the price? And you don't use the AC wifi of the router either, so...
I get about 70-80 Mbps on the MR6400 and I may achieve even more if I try two devices connected to the router and load simultanously (I haven't tried it yet).
Following this idea, you could connect two ports of the MR600 to the R470T+ to increase the bandwidth of the 4G+ connection, if you had it.
I also use TL-R470T+ for load balancing two connections (ADSL and mobile) but it's only because that multi wan router had already been purchased by someone previously in the past.
Obviously if I had to buy a new one, now I would choose either the R600VPN or the newer R605. These have gigabit ethernet ports.
The R480T+ only differs from R470T+ about some features like Multi-Nets NAT option and can handle 3 times more concurrent sessions but it does not have gigabit ports, either!
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Arion wrote
If your download-speed is only around 70Mbps I'm wondering why didn't you choose the MR6400 (or the MR100) instead that is half the price? And you don't use the AC wifi of the router either, so...
The only 4G router available at the time was the MR600 as 4G modems/routers were flying off the shelves during lockdown.
I get about 70-80 Mbps on the MR6400 and I may achieve even more if I try two devices connected to the router and load simultanously (I haven't tried it yet).
Following this idea, you could connect two ports of the MR600 to the R470T+ to increase the bandwidth of the 4G+ connection, if you had it.
I believe for this to work the MR600 and the R470T+ would both have to support channel/link bonding? I would consider using the Gigabit version first though.
I also use TL-R470T+ for load balancing two connections (ADSL and mobile) but it's only because that multi wan router had already been purchased by someone previously in the past.
Obviously if I had to buy a new one, now I would choose either the R600VPN or the newer R605. These have gigabit ethernet ports.
The R480T+ only differs from R470T+ about some features like Multi-Nets NAT option and can handle 3 times more concurrent sessions but it does not have gigabit ports, either!
The R470T+ is a very cheap home option as my download speeds do not exceed 100Mbps and my session limits are low.
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I believe for this to work the MR600 and the R470T+ would both have to support channel/link bonding? I would consider using the Gigabit version first though.
I didn't mean link bonding as neither MR600 nor R470T+ support Link Aggregation Group that would make bonding.
I meant as the R470T+ is a multi-wan router and you can connect up to 4 modems and you have an ADLS already connected to it, beside of it you could connect the 4G router twice (from two LAN ports of the MR600 to two WAN ports of the R470T+) and set the two 4G WAN connections as if those were coming from separate devices.
This seems an option if the 4G connection could handle speed over 100Mbps but the connection is limited to 100 from either end.
I have to test it first because I've read somewhere in the past as if the R470T+ required different IP for the gateways of different WAN. In theory it should work but let's see.
This weekend I'll have the chance to try it, even with my MR6400. Then I'll write you back.
I have the feeling that the fast ethernet connection in routers doesn't let more than 80Mbps in reality and that can be in your case as well that you only see that speed and perhaps your router would love to give you more speed but the R470T+ limited it to 70-80Mbps. That's why it's worth the try.
Edit:
just to clarify, this idea is mainly not about increasing the download speed of one single device but for multiple devices in your local network at the same time.
So, increasing the total capacity of bandwidth for load balancing.
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Arion wrote
I believe for this to work the MR600 and the R470T+ would both have to support channel/link bonding? I would consider using the Gigabit version first though.
I didn't mean link bonding as neither MR600 nor R470T+ support Link Aggregation Group that would make bonding.
I meant as the R470T+ is a multi-wan router and you can connect up to 4 modems and you have an ADLS already connected to it, beside of it you could connect the 4G router twice (from two LAN ports of the MR600 to two WAN ports of the R470T+) and set the two 4G WAN connections as if those were coming from separate devices.
This seems an option if the 4G connection could handle speed over 100Mbps but the connection is limited to 100 from either end.
- I don't believe this will work? It would be better to use the 1Gig port version of the R470T+ if the 4G speed exceeded 100Mbps?
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At the end I didn't try it at the weekend and now I'm far from the location.
I'm thinking that it can't work because people say you need to have your WAN connections with different IP pool and that's why it could be a problem as from the same router it's going to be the same gateway IP address.
Definately the best option is getting the R600 or R605 that have gigabit ports. Neither the R470T+ nor R480T+ does have it.
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We struggled through the first lockdown with a sub-par ADSL connection. I thought I'd give the 4g+ connection with a MR600 V1 and a Vodafone unlimited max SIM. Although I was optimistic I would get something close to 300mbs down and 150mbps up but we are are actually getting around 60-80mbps down and 20-30mbps up. That's way better than our ADSL but I'd like to know if we can get better. I have been considering a Poynting antenna but they are pricey. I'd be interested to know if anyone has tried one. I'd also be interested to hear if anyone is getting faster speeds with a V2 over the V1.
My stats
Hardware version V1
signal strength 75%
Rsrp -101dbm
rsrq -11db
Snr 14.4db
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Your connection doesn't seem weak from the data but there is one more info that you didn't check:
which bands are connected. Try to choose "manual band selection" and try every combination.
If your router doesn't show this option by default with the latest firmware, you will need to upgrade it with the beta firmware (for MR600 v1) shared on this forum.
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Your connection doesn't seem weak from the data but there is one more info that you didn't check:
which bands are connected. Try to choose "manual band selection" and try every combination.
If your router doesn't show this option by default with the latest firmware, you will need to upgrade it with the beta firmware (for MR600 v1) shared on this forum.
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@Fl1nst0ne - thanks for this, I'm following your lead here.
On your network diagram is the TL-R480T+ also your firewall please?
I find it odd that many people are staying the 480 doesn't have Gig ports, can anyone from TP Link confirm this please?
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Interestingly, TP-Link website for R480t+ in the US states 100Mbps ports and also "End of Life" for the product.
On the UK site it doesn't say End of Life but also doesn't define the bandwidth of the ports on any part of the page. It doesn't also use the expression Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet. That's odd.
However, in the datasheet pdf* at the part Network Media it mentions only 10BASE-T and 100BASE-TX. And NAT Throughput is 95Mbps.
Go figure...
*
https://static.tp-link.com/2018/201809/20180917/TL-R480T(UN)9.0%20Datasheet.pdf
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