Nighthawk® LTE Mobile Hotspot Router connectivity

I'm not sure what your current setup is today, but do you know if you are using your Airport as a "Router" or as an "Access Point"?  For example, I used to have an Airport setup at my house with my FIOS.  In this configuration, I had the follwoing setup:

1) FIOS Fiber to ONT

2) ONT to Verizon (Actiontec) Router -- via MOCA or Ethernet (WAN)

3) Verizon (Actiontec) router performed the following functions:

 -- Firewall (separating WAN and LAN), NAT (enabling LAN clients to access the WAN), DHCP (leasing LAN addresses), Ethernet Switch (wired connectivity).

4) My Airport (more recently replaced by TP-Link WAP's)  was configured in Wireless Access Point (WAP) mode (sometimes called "Bridge mode") and connected via Ethernet to the Actiontec.  I forget whether I had the Airport configured as DHCP client or whether I configed it with a static IP.  Regardless, network clients (aka my laptop, iphone, etc.) leased their internal (LAN) IP's from the Actiontec AND NOT the Airport -- otherwise you'd have a double NAT situation.  In this way, all the Airport did was connect the Wireless interface(s) (aka Layer 1 of the OSI model) to the wired Ethernet interface.

Ok, so, in your case, you may have a similar setup.  Or, I have seen some folks (depending on their ISP) use a customer provided router -- like the Airport in Router mode -- in lieu of the ISP provided (Actiontec in my case) router.  Or, so people, just "plug it in" and don't realize that they are double-NAT'ing their wireless traffic and that's why their Ethernet connected PC's (connected to the ISP router) cannot talk to their Wireless connected PC's.

Now, getting to the mr1100.  Depending on the number of clients you wish to share your Cellular modem connection with, most people will use the mr1100 as BOTH the router and the wireless access point.  That is to say, it's a cellular Hotspot:

AT&T Cellular Network (WAN) <=> MR1100 Wifi/Eth/USB clients (LAN).

In this configuration, the mr1100 performs the following functions:

  -- Firewall (separating WAN and LAN), NAT (enabling LAN clients to access the WAN), DHCP (leasing LAN addresses), Ethernet Switch (wired connectivity), USB connectivity.

This works fine for most people with a short term, mobile (alka portable), need for internet access.  But here are the potential concerns for fixed location home use.  They may not be problem for you, but just keep them in mind

1) Routing / NAT'ing performance is not great --ok for a handful of latency tolerant cleints, but quickly collapses under heavy load

2) DHCP support is limited -- I forget but it's a limitation of either 10 or 20 IP addresses

3) Wifi range / signal strength / performance of the Wifi radios built into mr1100 suck (which is likely why you're asking about connecting your Airport to it)

4) WAN performance depends entirely on Cellular signal and band/tower/back haul performance.

But, based on your question, yes, you can definately connect your Airport to the mr1100.

1) From the admin page of the mr1100, be sure you configure the Ethernet standby to never

2) Power your mr1100 with a QC2 or QC3 power supply.  Place it somewhere you get great reception

3) Put your Airport in Access Point or Bridge mode

4) set your Airport to lease its IP address via  DHCP

5) turn off the Airport

6) turn off your wireless clients

7) From the admin page of the mr1100 turn the wireless radios off (connect to the mr1100 via Ethernet or USB to do this)

8) Connect your airport  via Ethernet (ideally through a small switch) to the mr1100

9) Turn on the Airport and let it start up fully.

10) Power up one wireless client, verify that it associates to the Airport, verify that it gets an IP address in the correct range for the DHCP server in the mr1100 (usually 192.168.0.x)

11) Verify access to the internet, benchmark internet speed (Fast.com or Ookla).

12) Repeat for your other wireless clients.

13) Reposition the mr1100 and/or add an external antenna(s) as needed to improve reception and performance

14) Whenever possible, use hard wired connections to the switch (inbetween mr1100 and Airport) for Rokus, PC's, etc.

Alternatively, you could double NAT and use the DHCP server in the Airport.  This also works fine in most cases but will introduce some additional latency and can cause issues with peering services and some Xbox games.

-Jonathan