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iScape
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ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Jun 01, 2021 10:15 am

Hi, can WAP AC combine/aggregate my multiple smartphones' (varying from 1 to 3) 5GHz hotspots and use those as WAN to further serve WiFi to 5GHz stations?
The expectation is that WAP AC will automatically detect if "known" hotspot became available and aggregate it to others that are already active.

If that's doable, then next question - what's the simplest way to "test" such aggregation (without all bells and whistles of auto-reconnects, etc) on my current HeX PoE + WAP AC?
So far it looks like mobile's connection is good enough if to use single smartphone with streaming service or video-conferencing, but I would like to "pilot" partial solution before I implement it at full.

I did aggregation years ago via Eth interface from multiple ISP. I also have "traveller router" that can connect to hotel's WiFi and then serve internet to my stations. So I do have basic understanding of the adjacent area.

Reasoning: I always have at least one cellphone at home with big data plan (typically there are up to 3 cellphones that supports 5GHz ac WiFi). I never use them at full so I have huge leftovers month-to-month.
I also have fiber connection.
My home setup is currently with HeX PoE as a router and WAP ac as AP.
My typical use case for internet is video-conferencing, video streaming, occasional gaming that doesn't require perfect ping.

What I thought is to get rid of fiber and HeX PoE and leave only with WAP ac.

Will be more than happy to explain/rephrase if needed.
Last edited by iScape on Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:11 pm, edited 4 times in total.
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly bond my cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:16 pm

(edited)
Last edited by rextended on Tue Jun 01, 2021 6:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
iScape
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly bond my cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:28 pm

Change your mind...
Bonding is supposing you have another device on other side of internet connection...
On the examples you do not notice than the oter device are on other side of internet?
I may have used wrong terminology to describe what I would like to do, I apologize for that. Basically, just like years back when I was combining 2 ISPs Etherner links (with no extra config on ISP side), I would like to do the same with my cellphones hotspots. Pls advise what's the proper term here and I will fix the top post/subject.
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:47 pm

You can
1 - Load balance between multiple WAN's, based on some logic (for example IP X goes to WAN1, IP Y goes to WAN2),

OR you can -
2 actually bond. To make this work (in theory) you will need access to a virtual machine or router another place, with proper Internet connection. Lets call your place
HOME and the place with proper internet connection "Droplet".

You need to make tunnels from HOME to Droplet through all your WAN's . Then you bond tunnel1-2-3 and so on.

Then set up proper routing from HOME to DROPLET through Bond.

Dependant on what bonding algorithm you configured the bond with , you will now l have redundant and possibly higher speed connection from Home to Droplet through WAN1+WAN2.
In theory you should also have higher speed internet through the same link. But a bond on different links and lengths, with different speeds and latency will probably not perform very good...
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Jun 01, 2021 5:32 pm

I've used wrong term "bonding", sorry for that. No way I'm going to use any "external" hw/sw to maintain it. So I've removed all mentions of "bonding" from original querstion to avoid further confusion.
rextended, quackyo - thank you for your correction

So it's about load balancing between two WANs that are connected as stations to my smartphones.

My question is, can WAP AC handle it - 5ghz on both sides, load-balancing on 2-3 "WiFi" WANs, auto-connect to extra smartphone hotspot once in range, hw-intensive load balancing?

Also, any way to make some simple config to test it before full-blown config?
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:49 pm

Anyone here who knows an answer to my question: can WAP AC handle it - 5ghz on both sides, load-balancing on 2-3 "WiFi" WANs that comes from my smartphone's hotspot, auto-connect to extra smartphone hotspot once in range, hw-intensive load balancing?
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:42 pm

You would need multiple 5 GHz radios to do this, a smartphone in hotspot mode runs as an AP, not a client, so you need a unique radio to connect to each smartphone in client mode. So no, wAP AC cannot do this (in fact, this setup is not really realistic for any Mikrotik product)
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:00 pm

You would need multiple 5 GHz radios to do this, a smartphone in hotspot mode runs as an AP, not a client, so you need a unique radio to connect to each smartphone in client mode. So no, wAP AC cannot do this (in fact, this setup is not really realistic for any Mikrotik product)
ah, ok, but if those smartphone's APs are running on the same channel, or if one of them is 2GHz and another one is 5GHz, then it might work, correct?
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Mon Aug 30, 2021 5:39 pm

ah, ok, but if those smartphone's APs are running on the same channel, or if one of them is 2GHz and another one is 5GHz, then it might work, correct?
answering myself - yes, it's doable thought hardly usable on practice if to use single rtadio.

I've got a chance to try it out myself. And it looks like there is no "aggregation" as such in modern world for retail user under generic conditions. So it shouldn't be a factor in decision to replace permanent connection (FTTH, etc) with "mobile" networking.

I have not yet finished my experiments, but for those who may be looking for some prelim/similar knowledge: if you're primarily consuming secured https traffic (which is everywhere) like netflix, youtube, etc, you will not be able to aggregate bandthwidth due to the following (simplified): "Whenever you want to establish a secure session, it's connections have to come from the same ip address every time. If the address suddenly changes, then the server can't verify that it is coming the same user/host machine. It suspects a man in the middle attack, or that some third party machine is trying to hi-jack the data stream. Better safe than sorry, so it drops the connection and possibly breaks the session"

Few other findings:
1. Combining multiple smartphones using single radio for both WWAN and WAN (like on mAP Lite) - doable, but one have to ensure smartphones are runining hotspots on the same channel (for sure it can't be configured permanently on non-rooted device, but it seems it can be "played around" by prior connection to the WiFi that has required channel). Typically they run on channel 1 or 6 for 2.4GHz band.
So far I have not yet finished configuration, as overall performance is kinda slow, and I feel it's not due to the radio itself or CPU, but rather some glitches with routing (dns, etc)
2. Available guides (either from Steve or from Daryl) can't be applied "as is" to default configs.
Last edited by iScape on Mon Aug 30, 2021 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Mon Aug 30, 2021 6:01 pm

You can use deterministic distribution of the connections, meaning that the same LAN host will always use the same WAN to connect to the same remote server. It may still not be enough, because some services hand over processing of a single application session between multiple servers and still expect the client's IP to remain stable, so the next step is that the same LAN host will always use the same WAN to connect anywhere.

You can attach a vitual wireless interface in AP mode to a physical wireless interface in client mode, but that means that the throughput falls to 1/2 at the best (every packet received by the client must be transmitted by the AP and vice versa).

You can also connect the third phone using USB on the hEX PoE - wAP ac has got no USB port unfortunately.
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Mon Aug 30, 2021 6:26 pm

You can use deterministic distribution of the connections, meaning that the same LAN host will always use the same WAN to connect to the same remote server. It may still not be enough, because some services hand over processing of a single application session between multiple servers and still expect the client's IP to remain stable, so the next step is that the same LAN host will always use the same WAN to connect anywhere.
yep, that's exactly my experience - so the outcome is that subject of the thread can't be accomplished for retail user regardless of nature of links (wireless or wired).
You can attach a vitual wireless interface in AP mode to a physical wireless interface in client mode, but that means that the throughput falls to 1/2 at the best (every packet received by the client must be transmitted by the AP and vice versa).
. Just in case, as I've mentioned in my prev reply, I've already configured "pilot" environment on both mAP lite and wAP AC. Also, your statement, if I understand it correctly, applies ony to single-radios like mAP lite. wAP AC has two, so there is no such limitation. "Audience" has 3, so it allows even better config.
Also, as mentioned in my previous post, I suspect that I have some config issues after applying "load balancing" guides from Daryl and Steve. Thus I haven't even reached "1/2" of available capacity on mAP lite.
You can also connect the third phone using USB on the hEX PoE - wAP ac has got no USB port unfortunately.
using USB doesn't fit into "seamless" path, as it will make it impossible to use the phone for it's daily duties.

I'll still try to get rid of FTTH, so I'll post my questions and issues re load balancing (mangle, nth) into respective other thread (Daryl, Steve), as applying those guides "as is" definitelly results in great lags and unstable bandthwidth (I suspect routing issues caused by my ISPs specific, hopefully the ones that can be fixed)
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Mon Aug 30, 2021 6:36 pm

You've mentioned initially that you want the setup work as a repeater in terms that it acts both as a wireless client and a wireless AP. So whenever the local client is connected to a 2.4 GHz radio and its traffic uses the 2.4 GHz WAN, the 1/2 throughput applies. Same for 5 GHz radio.

So my statement applies to each single radio. With Audience, you may use one of the 5 GHz radios as a client only and the other one as an AP only, so the throughput would not be reduced, but if you wanted to connect each radio to a different phone running on a different channel, at least the one sharing the AP and client function will again drop to 1/2 effective throughput.

I didn't know it was possible to create a virtual client interface because if both the external APs use the same channel, they must share its bandwidth as well. But it may not constitute a huge problem if the throughput of the WiFi on the phone is 4 times higher than the throughput of a single LTE (so the summary bandwidth of both LTE connections fits at least twice into the WiFi bandwidth available).
 
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Re: ROS: Can I seamlessly combine/aggregate my 2-3 cellphones hotspots as WANs (on WAP ac)?

Mon Aug 30, 2021 7:34 pm

You've mentioned initially that you want the setup work as a repeater in terms that it acts both as a wireless client and a wireless AP. So whenever the local client is connected to a 2.4 GHz radio and its traffic uses the 2.4 GHz WAN, the 1/2 throughput applies. Same for 5 GHz radio.
not a repeater per se, but rather router that uses wireless links as WANs.
So my statement applies to each single radio. With Audience, you may use one of the 5 GHz radios as a client only and the other one as an AP only, so the throughput would not be reduced, but if you wanted to connect each radio to a different phone running on a different channel, at least the one sharing the AP and client function will again drop to 1/2 effective throughput.
ah. ok, you're right in this regards, sorry.
I didn't know it was possible to create a virtual client interface because if both the external APs use the same channel, they must share its bandwidth as well. But it may not constitute a huge problem if the throughput of the WiFi on the phone is 4 times higher than the throughput of a single LTE (so the summary bandwidth of both LTE connections fits at least twice into the WiFi bandwidth available).
it kinda works, but I still have to sort out (potentially) routing issues to get rid of strange lags. I assume they're routing issues mainly because Steve's/Daryl's guides contained settings that directly leads to non-functioning setups if to apply those to my env.

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