What routers support 4g/5g failover and VLAN?

With all the issues the past few days I’m looking for a new router with 4g/5g failover, the router obviously would need to support VLAN and have at least 1 x 2.5gb WAN port and 1 x 2.5g LAN port.

Does anyone know of one please?

Cheers

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Those specs don’t really exist on the market (there may be the odd one that exists somewhere) currently as an all in one solution (Sim slot built in) far better off building your own router/firewall with 3 NICS.
1 x 2.5gpbs WAN
1 x 2.5gbps LAN
1 x 1gbps failover

Or buy a pre built like this Amazon.co.uk

Then on the failover port have a mifi type device that has a sim slot and ethernet port.

But you would need the technical know how on how to configure all this if using something like opnsense/PFsense

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Flint 2 running OWRT is £110-145 new and offers both 2.5G LAN & WAN, as it’s running OWRT, as long as the dongle is supported, can do 4G failover. See wiki here

It does have a issue with 2.4Ghz WI-FI, but it should be resolved in a future OWRT update. I can name others, but that’s where my money would go if I were spending it on an all in one device today.

HOWEVER, if you fancy a little project, you can repurpose an older desktop, say something 6th gen or newer (free to £25-40 on ebay), add a cheap i225/i226 based 2T NIC (£20-30 ali/ebay) and a mesh set-up or AP’s of your choice and have something that will idle at 10-15w and make future upgrades (eg faster wifi or NIC’s) cheap and easy, then install OPNSense or OpenWRT. The initial learning curve is slightly steeper, but the power and flexibility a system like this brings is massive.

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look what I found on AliExpress, Soft Router Fanless Mini PC Intel Alder Lake N100 4*Intel i226 2.5G LAN HDMI DP pfSense 4G/5G Firewall Appliance ESXI AES-NI
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006434423111.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.5.4c25dHU2dHU2rW&algo_pvid=3123f01e-3127-4eb8-a964-0de442728127&algo_exp_id=3123f01e-3127-4eb8-a964-0de442728127-2&pdp_npi=4%40dis!GBP!182.14!102.00!!!223.13!124.95!%402103854017115787561825398ead2e!12000037153583527!sea!GB!0!AB&curPageLogUid=Ke6VXDPblj4W&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A

Tricky requirements as VLANS are not found home /gaming routers.

Draytek has a few all in one routers with VLAN and integrated LTE/5G , for example

https://www.draytek.co.uk/products/business/vigor-2927lax-5g#features

Another option would be some like a Synology Rt6600Ax with a Netgear LTE modem .
https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/RT6600ax

Rt6600Ax has VLAN support (5 vlans) and built in failover to 2nd WAN.

Netgear LTE modem,
https://www.netgear.com/uk/home/mobile-wifi/lte-modems/lm1200/

I am in a similar place, looking to get a external modem as a backup.

Has anyone actually found a decent Sim deal for this sort of scenario then? I looked it into it a few years back and it was the lack of a decent Sim deal that put me off implementing. So, would love to hear what anyone has found.

Main problem I found (I think, although was a while back!) looking at PAYG was that you had to use it every so often to keep it active. Pay monthly didn’t really cost in but this was based on VM downtime which had been only twice over the previous 18 months.

So, would be great to have some recommendations.

Cheers.
Keeop

UDM or UDM-SE gateway which I run now, 2 x 10G SFP+ ports 1 x 2.5G one of each can be configured for WAN fail over. It does vlans and has IDS IPS protection.

Only the UDM Pro SE (£470 ish) has 2.5Gbe copper and 2xSFP+ 10Gb, the UDM Pro (£370 ish) has gigabit WAN (copper) and 2x10Gb SFP+, but to use it at 2.5Gb you’d need a £60-70 transceiver like the Mikrotik S+RJ10 (Ubiquiti do a multi-gig transceiver but it’s not as reliable ironically), so it’s more like £420-470. You may find the ONT will happily connect at 10Gb and you only need a £40 copper transceiver, but you’re still in this for £400 minimum. The UDM you mention is single wan gigabit copper only. They also all lack the USB dongle support for failover that something like OWRT has, meaning that instead of a £10-20 dongle, you are now looking at a minimum of £40 (used) for a router with bridge mode capabilities, you can easily spend a few hundred, but whatever you do, avoid the Unifi LTE option, you will be bitterly disappointed and it’s not cheap. You also then need to allow for AP’s or some form of wireless, and a U6+ is another £95 ish.

The IDS/IPS is somewhat limited and tops out about 3.5Gb/s, fine for today’s 2.5Gb/s connections, but no use beyond that as the next logical jumps are 5Gb/s and 10Gb/s.

Either way, a Flint2 for £125-145 means £20 dongle support and AGH plugin ready to roll with inbuilt wifi. I know what I own/run (UDMP-SE + U6 Pro) and what makes more logical and financial sense based on the stated requirements (Flint2), but each to his/her own :slight_smile:

Look at Lyca Mobile here, uses the EE network > Pay Monthly SIM Plans and Unlimited Data | Lyca Mobile

They do PAYG or Monthly sims at a decent price, also Smarty is another one.

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Smarty - if you have the coverage - were doing 30GB for just over a fiver a month recently.

I’ve got the ONT connected in the 2.5G fixed copper interface and a NAS in the SFP+ the 10G SFP was 40 quid and compatible and changes link speed to the NAS which is only a gig interface currently.
But potential for fibre to an upstream switch if you decided to add.

I was using PFsense plus but after trouble for a second time, I think one of the modules that integrate with it, I decided enough was enough and wanted something future proof and upgradable.
Ubiquity sort out issues as people pay money for it.
By the way you can use something like this,

Other solutions are available :grinning:
Hope you find a solution.

You know, that’s either the funniest thing i’ve read in years, or i’m about to do the networking equivalent of tell a child Santa isn’t real… Ubiquiti’s support is community based and near useless.

Sadly, many of us have waited years at this stage for Ubiquiti to fix obvious issues that people have begged them to address, they only just managed to sort out firewalling to a level that I would consider acceptable in a very recent update, and basic functions like multiple IP WAN are still not functional after many years of begging, pleading and the odd user script to bodge it on previous hardware generations. You probably don’t want me to get started on Netgate either…really not a fan tbh.

The SFP+ ports will do 1/10, that’s cheap/easy, modules that do NBASE-T speeds (2.5/5Gb) cost more as the copper side has to negotiate independently of the SFP+ port, that said if you’re only running 1Gb over SFP+, it’s largely pointless unless you’re talking hundreds of meters (eg beyond the length supported by copper) and you don’t tend to see that much in residential situations.

Yeah, that’s the obvious hardware component to pair with a UDM but the price is mental, even for UniFi! But yeah, it was more the SIM. In an ideal world, a PAYG SIM with something like 100gb data that lasted indefinitely, rather than expiring after x months or only working if a data connection is made x times every month.

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It’s not just the price that’s mental, the Unifi LTE product is an absolute mess in at this point and it’s always been that way. It’s the sort of product that should only be sold to people you really hate and want to see miserable for as long as they have to use it.

You’re allowed your option as I am.
I remember in the ,90s paying 109 quid for a 56K modern so 500 these days to future proof isn’t outrageous!

@CraigT1976
There’s several solutions that I’ve found searching around which include a router I’ve mentioned but with other 5G provider routers, Huawi do one as do most that are fed from the router fail over port but as you say the hard solution is the 5G SIM the nearest I can come up with might be eBay if you can find a trusted provider :grinning:

I’ve purchased on of these to play with on the supplied Yayzi router, hopefully I can get it to work.

Yep worth a punt and nothing to lose👍