looking for home router with mobile data failover connectivity

[gamb00ler]

A family member conducts significant business using virtual meetings so I would like a failover option to reduce interruptions.

 

Our primary internet will be a fibre connection.  I expect I'll have to settle for nested routers, with the ISP's modem in bridge mode.

Hopefully it will be more reliable than our current connection at our rented house.

 

[Woof999]

A "family member" in my household is in exactly the same position.

 

What I find with True is that my internet connection is actually at least as reliable as the people who my family member talk to in the US / UK / rest of Europe, with them having more dropouts than us.

 

However, True do have a habit of "kicking" the connection, sometimes 4 or 5 times per day. This manifests as a change of IPv4 address and it happens relatively fast, but still causes drop outs for 5 seconds or so, which then automatically re-connect. It's annoying but livable. I assume it is because of the worldwide lack of IPv4 addresses and they do it to ensure all customers can be connected.

 

A router with a mobile backup connection wouldn't help in this situation as, when the connection cuts over to mobile, there would be the same kind of interruption and probably a change of IP address to go with it any way.

 

What we DO have (soon) is a backup internet connection from a separate provider, routed to the house via a separate path. This solves a slightly different problem, but ensures we almost always have a connection available, even though it requires manual intervention to change over.

 

True also have the REALLY annoying habit (and I would think almost illegal) of occasionally rerouting HTTP requests to an advert, almost always their own advert, telling me in Thai about something that they think is important to me but I absolutely don't want to know about. If this happens while I'm browsing a forum then it's no big deal. If it happens while a "family member" is testing a new API then it's a real PITA, as it's not apparent that this is what they've done without debugging. Totally annoying, but it doesn't affect online meetings. If this happened back in the UK then the ISP would get hammered.

[soi3eddie]

1 hour ago, Woof999 said:

A "family member" in my household is in exactly the same position.

 

What I find with True is that my internet connection is actually at least as reliable as the people who my family member talk to in the US / UK / rest of Europe, with them having more dropouts than us.

 

However, True do have a habit of "kicking" the connection, sometimes 4 or 5 times per day. This manifests as a change of IPv4 address and it happens relatively fast, but still causes drop outs for 5 seconds or so, which then automatically re-connect. It's annoying but livable. I assume it is because of the worldwide lack of IPv4 addresses and they do it to ensure all customers can be connected.

 

A router with a mobile backup connection wouldn't help in this situation as, when the connection cuts over to mobile, there would be the same kind of interruption and probably a change of IP address to go with it any way.

 

What we DO have (soon) is a backup internet connection from a separate provider, routed to the house via a separate path. This solves a slightly different problem, but ensures we almost always have a connection available, even though it requires manual intervention to change over.

 

True also have the REALLY annoying habit (and I would think almost illegal) of occasionally rerouting HTTP requests to an advert, almost always their own advert, telling me in Thai about something that they think is important to me but I absolutely don't want to know about. If this happens while I'm browsing a forum then it's no big deal. If it happens while a "family member" is testing a new API then it's a real PITA, as it's not apparent that this is what they've done without debugging. Totally annoying, but it doesn't affect online meetings. If this happened back in the UK then the ISP would get hammered.

 

In the UK some or most ISPs provide their routers with 4G back-up built in. Not sure if same available here in LOS.

So glad I'm on 3BB Fiber and not True. My connection never misses a beat unless some bozo truck driver takes out the line pole????. I always have a back-up just in case of network interruption (such as power outage for maintenance in our building that knock our the router). Then can use my mobile phone as a hotspot with laptop for a few hours.

 

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by soi3eddie

[gamb00ler]

9 hours ago, Woof999 said:

True also have the REALLY annoying habit (and I would think almost illegal) of occasionally rerouting HTTP requests to an advert, almost always their own advert, telling me in Thai about something that they think is important to me but I absolutely don't want to know about. If this happens while I'm browsing a forum then it's no big deal. If it happens while a "family member" is testing a new API then it's a real PITA, as it's not apparent that this is what they've done without debugging. Totally annoying, but it doesn't affect online meetings. If this happened back in the UK then the ISP would get hammered.

Yeah... I've seen that happen.  I knew that True was somehow interceding in my connection.  I was thinking that they were doing it through some temporary DNS trickery.  I agree that True would get reprimanded if they were under FCC (USA) licensing regulations.

 

Thanks for the discussion about the bumps that will occur during a change of routing when a failure of the primary internet connection occurs.

[topt]

On 2/9/2023 at 9:09 AM, Woof999 said:

However, True do have a habit of "kicking" the connection, sometimes 4 or 5 times per day.

I have been experiencing this only fairly recently and not noticed more than 2 in one day and seemingly not every day but had been wondering at the cause. Thanks

 

On 2/9/2023 at 9:09 AM, Woof999 said:

True also have the REALLY annoying habit (and I would think almost illegal) of occasionally rerouting HTTP requests to an advert, almost always their own advert,

I used to get this but not seen it happen since I changed my DNS settings on the pc and router to Quad 9 and Cloudflare