Hi guys,
My client has 3 buildings with apartments for rent. The buildings are located far from wired internet providers.
LTE signal is not perfect (in good weather we can reach 30MBps downlink and about 5-8MBps uplink from single LTE connection). LTE routers connect to 3 diffrent operators.
So far I have built 3 independent networks like this:
Now I want to connect them into one network and handle problems like problems with one LTE operator, dead SXT LTE device (so far we had 2 failures) etc.
My idea looks like this:
Question 1: Is this good idea?
Question 2: What kind of router should I buy?
Can I use something like RB750r2 and add some low cost switch (I need 6 etherent ports), or should I get something like RB2011? There may be about 30-40 people using internet in these buildings.
Answer to Question 1:
Every solutions has it advantages and disadvantages.
But i think it’s a good idee to concatenate all three WAN’s /LTE’s
Just be sure you don’t create NEW problems =)
For exemple:
Cable-Length may be an issue here..
You will probably need Ethernet-Repeaters or even Fiber-Optic-Links.
Answer to Question 2:
I wouldn’t buy a Router AND a switch.
Just buy a Router with a suitable amount of Ports
I don’t know your Setup (QoS, Firewall, VPN, ect…)
But i think most Routers with 8+ Ports will be able to handel the Traffic.
RB2011iL, RB3011, RB4011, RB5011, etc…
Are you going to also re-design the IP-part ? Would the 3 buildings be using different /24 subnets for example ?
Or are you even further and provide 1 VLAN + 192.168.x.0/24 for each tenant ?
Then at least you can provide some isolation between the different buildings / tenants ?
But apart from that it looks like a good plan. Have any router with enough ports and then you could also “balance” a bit across the 3 LTE subscriptions. Or you could reduce it towards 2 LTE subscriptions.
Building 1 : uses under normal circumstances LTE1 unless it breaks down, then switch them over to LTE2
Building 2 : uses under normal circumstances LTE2 unless it breaks down, then switch them over to LTE1
Building 3 : uses under normal circumstances LTE3 unless it breaks down, then switch them over to LTE2
I would initially not be doing too fancy load-distribution across the LTE’s, but really switch-over buildings integrally in case of issues.
