Connecting a Nighthawk hotspot (4G M1) to a switch

[tas99]

I am planning on connecting a Nighthawk hotspot (4G M1) to a switch to enable additional wired devices to access the MiFi device.

Has anyone done this and if so is there any advice or tips that might be helpful.

Any help is appreciated,

Tom

[pohlevj]

This is the setup I have had at home for quite some time. I have the Netgear Nighthawk M1 with an unlimited Business elite plan through AT&T. It costs about $91 a month and is totally unlimited. They say it deprioritizes after 100GB but I have yet to notice any real degradation in speeds after 100GB. I have an ethernet cable going from the ethernet port of the M1 to the WAN port of an ASUS router. Then I have my ASUS router handling my wifi devices. I then have one of the router's LAN ports going to an 8-port switch. This way I am able to expand the LAN ports from a total of 4 to a total of 12. The settings on the M1 can stay mostly the same. Things I would change are the standby mode you want to disable that. You can also choose to disable IP passthrough so that it turns off the built-in wifi of the M1, but I actually keep that on just in case I have a problem with anything I am still able to connect to the M1's SSID to diagnose things. You will also want to make note of the fact that the M1 by default uses the 192.168.1.1 as it's IP address. If your router uses the same 1.1 then you will have to log into the router ahead of time before connecting things and change it to something like 192.168.50.1 or whatever. Some newer routers are smart enough to see this and will change it automatically, but I would do it yourself just to be safe. Finally, I would HIGHLY suggest getting yourself some external antennas to connect to the M1. There are two TS9 ports on the M1 that are under little rubber flaps. They make different form factors of outdoor antennas that will improve your signal quality and UL/DL speeds dramatically. The price points of these antennas are also all over the place, but you do not by any means have to spend a fortune to get good results. If you want to keep things on the easier/simpler side, I would suggest something like this:

Proxicast MIMO antenna:

https://www.amazon.com/Proxicast-Cross-Polarized-High-Gain-Fixed-Mount-Antenna/dp/B01NBSLNJ6/ref=sr_...

You will want to mount this antenna to a pole like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Accessories-Installation-Weatherproof-SDW1220/dp/B08HVV46KR/ref=sr_1_...

You will then need nice thick LMR400 cables to connect this antenna to the M1's TS9 ports. They make different cable lengths, but the shorter you are able to keep the length the better. Anything over 20 feet or so you will start to see a degradation in signal strength and therefore a degradation in speeds. To make things easy, you can get these cables with the appropriate ends already on them. Please don't be cheap with these because quality cabling is vital to a strong signal. You will need cables like these:

20 ft. LMR400 N Male to RP-SMA cable:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083JJDPHS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Yes they are pricey, but worth it. You can probably get away with Proxicast cables or another brand that has good reviews, but just make sure you don't go TOO cheap with these. And remember, you will need TWO of these cables. 

Finally, you will need little pigtail adapters for the ends that connect to the TS9 ports of the M1. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082KLWVGD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You only need ONE of these from Amazon since they come as a 2-pack. 

Once you get everything in, it's time to mount the antenna and get it connected to the M1. Hopefully you will be able to mount your antennas on a side of the house that is convenient in relation to where you will put the M1 modem. Basically you will need to drill two holes to feed the LMR400 cables through from the outside of your house into the inside of your house. You want to mount the panel antenna on the antenna pole and mount the whole thing either to the outside of your house pointed toward the nearest cell tower or even mount it to a fence that's attached to your house or even on your roof if you can be careful. Use the app on your phone called OpenSignal to find where the nearest cell tower is. Once in the app, select the arrow option at the bottom and it will show you the direction of the nearest cell tower. Typically the higher you can get the antennas the better, but for me mounting mine closer to the ground on my fence and then pointing it slightly in the air gave me the best results. You will ultimately have to have time and patience to figure out the best placement and positioning of the antenna. Once the antenna is mounted, you will have to connect the two cables to the antenna and feed them into the house to where the M1 is located. Take the two pigtail connectors and connect them to the ends of the LMR400 cables. Then open the rubber flaps to the TS9 ports on the M1 and push the cables into the two TS9 ports. The left TS9 port is the MAIN port and the right TS9 port is the SECONDARY port. You can try swapping them if you'd like to see if it changes your results when it comes time to do speed tests. 

Once everything is connected, as I mentioned above, try to figure out where the nearest tower is and point the panel antenna toward it and then use the Speedtest app to run multiple speed tests. Make sure you are connecting your phone to the M1's wifi so that way you are actually testing the speed of the M1. For an even more accurate result, connect a laptop to the ethernet port of the M1 and go to speedtest.net to run speed tests. The hard wire method is much more accurate than testing through Wifi. Keep making small adjustments to the antenna and then run more speed tests. Try rotating the antenna a little each way, perhaps angle it in the air a little bit, maybe even angle it down toward the ground a little bit. Sometimes you'll be amazed at what position of the antenna gives you the best results. Again, time and patience is key, but if you do this your results will be astronomically better compared to not using antennas at all. 

I was getting maybe 5-10MB down and like 1MB up without the outdoor antenna. After configuring the antenna, I am getting anywhere from 40MB down to as high as 100MB down, and anywhere from 2.5MB up to 12MB up. It depends on time of day and my current prioritization on the AT&T network. I would also suggest using one of those power outlet timers with the M1 and set it up so that the M1 reboots every morning at like 4:30am or whatever. Having this unit reboot every morning before you wake up will help with performance. Every time you reboot the M1 it has to reconnect to the AT&T network, and I believe if you basically do a reconnect it will put you to the top of the priority list, which is why you will notice whenever you reboot the M1 or any other hotspot/LTE modem the speeds are much better. Then as time goes on throughout the day you move down the priority list and your speeds become slower.

Here is a timer that you can use:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_atf_aps_sr_pg1_1?ie=UTF8&adId=A0...

You can keep going with this to better your performance, but it starts going into a nitty gritty technical realm of things that I don't want to get into unless someone really wants to go there. It involves unlocking the M1 so that you can choose which bands to use so that the M1 doesn't choose the bands for you. If anyone wants to know more about this I can discuss what I know about it and what I've tried. 

This setup does cost some money and will require some time, patience, and dedication, but for me it was totally worth it and I suggest it to anyone who doesn't have options in rural areas. I am even able to online game using this configuration. The latency isn't totally amazing or anything, but it's good enough to do some casual COD on my PS5, and that's all I need to be honest. My family is able to run multiple TVs in the house at once with some 4K content streaming as well. 

Hope this helps!

[jurajpe1]

Hi. But can I just connect a switch? To the M1 ethernet port? Not a full router.
I would like to use a switch so I can connect a couple of devices to it with wires.
And also, if I then could connect a wifi access point to that switch? Thanks

[JohnPeng]

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@jurajpe1 wrote:
Hi. But can I just connect a switch? To the M1 ethernet port? Not a full router.
I would like to use a switch so I can connect a couple of devices to it with wires.
And also, if I then could connect a wifi access point to that switch? Thanks

---

You can give it a try. But depend on how many devices you want to connect to the switch, the data connection may become unstable. We recommend to use a router client to connect to M1 ethernet port. Then you can connect all your clients to the router. 

Thanks

[jurajpe1]

I will try this. I already tried to connect one computer to the ethernet port direct and it is working fine. I am ok with that. In this case, only one PC to ethernet and a couple of iphones at one time connected to wifi will be stable? Was reading originally that the ethernet port is working for the offloading, but I switched off the tether on the usb port and disabled the standby for the ethernet as it was suggested. I need kind of stable connection on the ethernet, same as the M1 provides for the wifi. Using it for several years and very happy with it.

Though I will to connect a small switch in between. I would still use only one PC connected to it, but wanted to try to connect a unifi NanoHD to it as well to use that for the wifi. Instead of the M1. Did anyone try that? Theoretically this should work as I would setup the NanoHD with its own SSID. And just send the data over the ethernet back to the M1. I will report on this.
I have a switch and nanoHD lying around, but have no router to spare. I need to extend our holiday setup.