NETGEAR is aware of a growing number of phone and online scams. To learn how to stay safe click here.
Forum Discussion
Two Netgear Nighthawks, MR1100/2100
Hi, I apologise in advance if this has been covered elsewhere or if this is not the correct forum for this question.
I have two Telstra (AU telecom provider) Netgear Nighthawk 4G mobile broadband modems (M1 & M2 in Telstra parlance, so MR1100 & MR2100 in Netgear-speak) for home use (batteries out, mains-powered only) as well as a small pocketable ZTE MF910 4G modem mainly for use in my car or when out and about (all modems remain on, so transmitting & receiving throughout the day).
The 2019-2020 bushfires that devastated our region here on the far south coast of NSW in AU did nothing to improve our telecoms infrastructure here and with no fixed (NBN) internet in our home, I acquired the two modems to enable a (relatively) reliable internet connection. To enable this, I have 3 different SIMs from 3 different providers (mobile reception often doesn't work on one or the other from time to time, so I just switch to a different modem). The MR1100 one is connected by Ethernet to an Apple Airport Time Capsule to provide computer backups, WiFi coverage & printer access throughout the apartment.
Preamble over, given that there are two Netgear Nighthawk MR-type modems, is there any problem that they have the same gateway 192.168.1.1 (apart from the administration web page being the same), despite the IP addresses being different (2˚ to different ISPs)?
4 Replies
That sounds like an expensive setup/monthly bill. No starlink in your area?
You could always pick up something like the edgerouterx that supports dual wan with failover capability for pretty cheap. That'd make it easier for automatic failover and keep all your devices on the same network.
Thank you for your reply.
Why not Starlink? I suppose I should have put in up front I do not own where I live, I rent a small furnished "holiday home" apartment & there are very rigid restrictions on what I can do, so anything has to be inside only (no aerials/clothes drying on balconies et cetera), further, the owner rents it out on airbnb when I am away for 2/12 each year visiting family, so everything personal has to be easily moved out to storage (& back again).
Cost of the 3 SIMs, ≈AU$75/month for a total 150GB (which I rarely use in the month, but 2 of the 3 SIMs have a rollover facility which is useful for when I might need more than the 150GB).
I'll try to decode the bit about the "edgerouterx that supports dual wan with failover capability" (I'm not very "network techie"), but I assume it means something like attaching both Nighthawks to the edgerouterx and through some firmware/software stuff inside it, it just works having both connected to a single network?
Not only can they be used for failover, it think it also offers load balancing. there's a few videos on youtube of how to set it up. Nice thing is that its been out for quite a few years and can be picked up cheap on used sites. I would have gotten one quite a while ago for the dual wan potential (and its over abilities) but its only gigabit. Which doesn't matter for most hotspots.
Make a little "cellular" box that has antennas for the hotspots that run back to a central box with the hotspots and then the edgerouter x. Be kind of a cool little "suitcase" you could use for increased speeds (maybe?) and more reliability that is easily put into storage.
