Which router should you choose?
Which router should you choose?
Hey everyone, I'm trying to find a router with automatic fallback USB phone connection plus a cable modem port. I've seen some ASUS routers and the Pepwave SOHO Surf router have this feature. Are there others I should check out, or what's better between these brands? Thanks so much! Russ
You should pick an Asus model if it runs on a Merlin version of 388_2_2 or higher. You can find the links for these models here: https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/
I might be confusing things here. I checked the ASUS RT-AX68U manual to see how they set things up. Their method is totally different from what I wanted. I have a cell phone that can use USB tethering. I want to connect my phone via USB to this router, enable the tethering feature, and get internet instead of my broken Spectrum cable. Hope this helps Russ
Usually, certain USB modems work well for them. That's how all my Asus routers seem to be set up. The easiest way is to buy another router that can act as a wireless bridge. You just plug this new router into your phone's hotspot and change the internet input from the Spectrum router to the wireless bridge. No need to change your main router at all.
You need to read every single small detail just to figure out which specific phone models actually do this thing. It's not a long list of supported devices, but it exists anyway. The trouble is the phone seller must give you their info and maybe even make a driver that runs on them. Phone makers usually think no other systems exist at all and your whole life should just run on a 5 inch screen. They might add drivers for Windows or Linux, but most of these are just binary files that won't work on the chips found in routers. Asus has a list of phones that run in tether mode. Now "maybe?" you can get a modem that works and then move your SIM card from the phone to the modem. Again the problem is the phone companies are very greedy and sometimes want a different contract if you have a data device (like a modem). They know well that no one can actually use unlimited data with a phone but with a PC there are now so many games that eat up 20 gigabytes. As Kanewolf suggests, the method that always works for every phone is using the hotspot feature instead of tethering.
Bingo! 😎 I just plugged my phone into a Win7 computer's USB port and clicked "USB Tether". A popup appeared telling me to add "Smartphone Mobile Hotspot" to my rate plan, and I had to download a driver from lg.com. It also says it only works with Windows Vista and later. Not gonna happen... I dug out my old router (D-Link DR-615) but it's too old, no dual band and no bridge mode. Gotta buy a newer model. So, buy a new router, set it in bridge mode, get the phone's WiFi hotspot working through it, pull cable from spectrum modem and plug it into... please tell me more about where that e'net cable needs to be placed into this bridged router. LAN? WAN? Thanks! Russ
So the very first thing to try is turning on hotspot mode on your phone. Sometimes that message means the ISP wants more money, so you have to read the small print carefully. Some plans might say unlimited data for the phone but then charge different prices when you use "tethered" mode, which includes using a phone's hotspot. You should be able to use another phone or your PC with WiFi to connect to that phone hotspot and check if it works okay. That way you can test both performance and cost. If you want to experiment, try loading dd-wrt on your dr-615. Not all of these support third-party firmware; it depends on the specific hardware version you have. If it works well, dd-wrt has a "bridge" mode. You need to be careful because what you really want is called "client-bridge," which makes the device look like just one end in the connection chain. dd-wrt supports both types of bridge modes. You used to buy "client-brides," but they were used on old TVs and game consoles that only had ethernet ports. Those are very rare nowadays, mostly because you can now buy "repeaters/extenders" that also work as simple client-bridges. Many routers today have this ability too. You don't need a fancy router since the phone probably doesn't support high-end MIMO or data encoding rates. Even though it likely won't matter for your specific case, I would consider using something like tplink because they support what they call "universal" repeaters.
Besides the D-Link, my son has a really old Linksys router called the WRT54GL that also seems to have DD WRT firmware available for it. Right now, it says both router mode and gateway mode. Would gateway mode be like bridge mode? Russ