Possible to share connection from hotspot with household?

[nebrazca78]

I'm looking for a router that has a capability I'm not sure exists. Right now I'm using a handset based wireless hotspot and it works fairly well but sometimes the handset gets overloaded by the clients. My cellular connection where I am is usually very stong, the cell connection is 4G LTE and my phone is rooted. As such I use about 200 - 300 GB a month with up to 32 Mb/sec with no additional costs.

Aside from the overloading the hotspot software is not very robust and doesn't always act like I believe a router should. Some devices have trouble seeing others on the network and connections that don't need the internet still flake out sometimes. As in streaming or casting from device to device usually works but not always and for reasons unknown to me. The ability to not use wifi direct would be an advantage because of legacy devices.

I'd like to be able to have a router that can connect to the hotspot and provide its internet connectivity with all the household devices as well as bear the load of directly connecting the devices that need it. The ability to attach storage directly to the router would also be nice. I have a few fairly large USB thumbdrives ranging from 32 - 128 GB which I'd really like to directly attach so multiple USB ports that can do this would be great. If a separate USB hub is necessary that would be Ok.

What routers on the market can do these things and how much do they generally go for? Thanks in advance!

 

[degrub]

have you worked through the router guide and read the forum ?
It's all there.

 

[nebrazca78]

I didn't see anything anywhere about sharing a hotspot connection, am I missing something?

 

[degrub]

The hot spot is just connected to the wan port on the router. Look for routers with dual wan capability with ability to use a cell antenna on one wan input. You will have to do some digging in the product data sheets and manuals as well.

 

[nebrazca78]

That is helpful, thank you. Being as how this is the wireless buying advice section, does anyone have models with said capabilities that they recommend?

 

[ColinTaylor]

If you want to keep using you phone as a WiFi hotspot then you need a "travel router". Something like this should work when configured in "Hotspot Router Mode".

It does sound rather inconvenient having to leave your phone on all the time and in range of the travel router. A more permanent solution would be to have a dedicated SIM card that you put into a 4G LTE Router , or have a stand-alone 4G LTE Modem that you plug into any wireless router of your choosing.

(The products I have linked to are not recommendations, they are just examples)

 

[nebrazca78]

Yes it is inconvenient at times but the cost savings has made it worthwhile so far. Decent standard internet service around here is about $50 a month and we canceled that nearly a decade ago so I put up with it. My carrier doesn't use SIM cards unfortunately but the travel router or something similar should do the trick. Our house is only 1000 sq. ft so I don't think range will be an issue. For the record I have no aversion to Google or digging but for obscure things it seems much faster and usually more accurate to ask people who are experienced, especially when you're not really sure what you're looking for. Thank you both for helping me out!

 

[nebrazca78]

For informational purposes I thought I'd report back with what I ended up getting. Instead of going with one unit I decided to get a couple in case one didn't want to play nice with this setup. They ended up being the Monoprice 8070 and a Ziko range extender, both with WISP. I know I cheaped out big time but the shipped total was $21.74 for both in new condition although the Monoprice was open box. Hard to resist. They are supposed to arrive Thursday, findings will be forthcoming.

 

[nebrazca78]

I know it's been a little over a month but now that the holidays are over I've had time to take a good look at these two units. I found out quickly that the Ziko range extender wasn't going to work. The problem there was that for some unknown reason it won't work with an open system and they clearly state that on the box. I've never been able to get encryption to work on my rooted phone, not sure why, so that was a dead end right there.

As far as the Monoprice goes, after digging through the manual provided, which was anemic, and all I could find online, I hit another wall. I still have hope here though. The problem I'm running into is that the unit refuses to connect to my hotspot unless it's in client mode. No problem, except once it reboots in client mode I can no longer connect to it for final configuration. When I do a site survey it directly says it must be in client mode to connect to my hotspot, which is visible.

In the past, although I've never attempted anything like this before, I always connected to the router via hardwire for configuration. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but I've been unable to get that to work with the Monoprice. I've tried both the LAN and WAN ports with two separate computers, two separate cables and with applied settings as well as with a fresh resets. With the dearth of info available it would be really helpful if someone could point me in the right direction as to how to do this with the 8070. It really feels like if I can continue to configure when the unit is in client mode that will be the final step, everything else appears to be in order.

Thanks in advance!

 

[nebrazca78]

This morning I got up and decided to give the wired attempt another shot. Made sure everything was fully reset and rebooted and that my cable was fully functional. I was able to get to the router settings through the browser hardwired, finally. I was also able to attempt to connect to my hotspot after the mode was set as client. Unfortunately no matter what settings I've tried, it always times out. Still at a loss. Everything single other device I have connects to the hotspot with no problems whatsoever (until it gets to 10 clients anyway, and then it stops issuing IPs.)

 

[doczenith1]

I'm looking for a router that has a capability I'm not sure exists. Right now I'm using a handset based wireless hotspot and it works fairly well but sometimes the handset gets overloaded by the clients. My cellular connection where I am is usually very strong, the cell connection is 4G LTE and my phone is rooted. As such I use about 200 - 300 GB a month with up to 32 Mb/sec with no additional costs.

Unless I'm missing something this is easy! With my old RT-AC68U I could turn on the dual WAN feature and connect my phone to the router via a USB cable. After doing that all my clients that were previously connected to the router would now use the cellular connection of the phone. I first tried this when my ISP was suffering an outage. The screenshot if from my new router but the settings were the same. I may have

Actually, I don't think you even need to activate dual WAN, just set the WAN to USB.

The ability to attach storage directly to the router would also be nice. I have a few fairly large USB thumbdrives ranging from 32 - 128 GB which I'd really like to directly attach so multiple USB ports that can do this would be great. If a separate USB hub is necessary that would be Ok.

This is also possible using an Asus router.