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midwest22 · 01-06-2021, 10:24 PM

Before posting this, I've searched up and down the interwebs for an answer. Unfortunately Mofi only dedicated a 1/4 page in their manual to this topic too.

Heres my issue:

Router 1: MoFi 4500 - T Mobile
Router 2: Netgear Nighthawk MR1100 - AT&T

Im tired of jumping back and forth between the WiFi networks. I'd like to (ideally) bond the two together and use all possible data. In the very least I'd like to do load balancing, so long as it's not Round Robin. In other words, if the load balancer measures quality and speed, which in turn prioritizes one over the other, then thats acceptable.

In the absolute very least, I'd like to collect the networks together on the LAN but it's been a LONG time since I've played with router tables.

Has anyone here set their routers up this in one of these ways? I'm pulling my hair out but feel like I'm also really close.

smiller · 01-09-2021, 03:48 PM

Likely the only load balancing method that's going to supported by any consumer router is per connection, meaning that the router will share outgoing connections on on or more WAN sources but there is no intelligence that determines QoS of each connection and routes accordingly, rather just round-robin (there are more sophisticated load-sharing schemes of course but these are generally not supported on consumer routers.) This is why is is important that when load sharing on a per-connection basis that all WAN connections be of similar quality.

In my experience load sharing can be effective however it is not completely without quirks, the most notable being that there are sometimes problems with certain web sites that may have more than one connection up a time because seeing multiple connections from different IPs for the same session can look fishy to authentication mechanisms. Most of the time load sharing will work OK but occasionally you may have to disable it for problem sites. And again, if one connection is significantly faster than the other you also probably won't like the results.

As to how to set it up, depends on the router. Unless you want to get really deep into it I'd suggest finding a router that supports simple load sharing through the GUI. I use an Asus 1900 and it seems to work well, and also a Mikrotik router that allows more granular control but setup is rather complex. I believe that the WiFi Rangers support load sharing, as do a few other consumer routers. I think you're saying that the MoFi does as well (?) but I do not have experience with that model.

docj · 01-09-2021, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smiller

. I believe that the WiFi Rangers support load sharing, as do a few other consumer routers. I think you're saying that the MoFi does as well (?) but I do not have experience with that model.

Yes, WiFiRanger routers do support load balancing but they operate using a Round Robin approach and the OP asked for a router that didn't use that methodology.