Multiple ISPs in one large mesh cell

Is it possible to have multiple ISP connection plugged into a large mesh and have the customers roam around the cell without loosing connection but the network routing the packets to the closest ISP connection plugged into the network?? If this is possible how the heck do we do this?? lol

as far as i know, you cannot switch your internal customer from one ISP (external IP) to another one, without your customer loosing its connections (playing game, ssh sessions, tunnels), the best effort would be to maintain connection, and by possibility connect user to closest available exit from your mesh.

Thx for the reply, so, im pretty much stuck with having one big huge pipe!.. Hmm I wonder how projects like Locust World have accomplished this by allowing multiple internet connections plugged into the network and traffic finding the fastest way out considering that its a pretty old project… if course systems like Strix have this aswell,.. Oh well..!

But is it possible to do even if client gets momentaraly disconnected?? Have multiple ISP into the one hotspot in the network? I am aware that if I setup multiple hotspots within the same network this can kind of be done, but I wanted the freedom of having the customers just log in once throughout the network and have them stuck in the area of the hotspot they where initially configured in .. Hmm I think im missing something here… If I have them authenticate with external radius and not in MT hotspot could they then roam around the network regardless of cell internet connection??

Any dynamic routing protocol will chose closest gateway. You can configure OSPF for example or You can even try MME routing protocol which was designed to work on wireless mesh networks.

I’m not sure how it will work with hotspot, but without hotspot it is working :slight_smile:

well if user is just browsing web, then he will not see any problems with his connection being routed differently, so, just use MME or ospf. If someone complain - say that they do not move while using something that requires steady connection.

I understand the impossibility of maintaining existing sessions if the user’s public IP address changes due to an internal re-route, but how would a hotspot work in this scenario, if at all?

If I have a mesh with two public IP’s at two different locations in the mesh, do I need two hotspots configured?
It appears to me that the answer is yes, since I need the hotspot to handle the walled garden. If I just src-nat
each of my two public IP’s, users can reach the Internet without logging in.

If I put a hotspot in front of each public IP, a user logged in on hotspot A who gets rerouted to hotspot B won’t be logged in there and will see the login page again.

I guess after the user has logged into both, they can reach the Internet via either one, but they will appear to be
logged in twice if using an external radius server. It’s also will look odd to the user.

So, can I have a mesh with multiple gateways to the Internet and still use a hotspot without requiring the user to log in to both (or many more) hotspots if one of the gateways fail?