How to improve Home Network?

[buzz88]

I have two internet connections to my home. One for main use and one for backup. Since both are unlimited, we used two separate networks for different floors for a long time and everything worked well.

Recently, I decided to buy TpLink ER605 Multi-WAN router to combine the two network connections and automate the backup process.

Here's the network :

The problem is everything works, but the internet is slower than before. When i speed-test using Fast.com or www.speedtest.net, I can see that my network speed is not changed and I am getting 190+ Mbps. But day-2-day experience is slow. Apps on phones are slower. Sometimes, internet just drops and comes back after 30-40 seconds. Random internet drops never happened before i put ER605 in there. While watching Netflix or Hotstar also never buffered before, but it happens randomly sometimes now. The ER605 works as it should, so I don't know what could be the problem.

Alternatively, I am wondering how best to reconfigure this whole network. I am not knowledgeable on pfsense and managed switch and vlan and all, but I've seen people using all those in r/homelab and I have don't have the faintest idea where to begin to build something like this - https://i.redd.it/45qyjsp5iqp81.jpg Do I even need all that? My basic requirement is Gigabyte Ethernet connection to all devices on 1st floor and 2nd floor. And all digital devices should be able to connect to the NAS1 through ethernet. And it should be connected to both internet providers so that it stays always connected.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[superczar]

Have you configured your backup as failover ?
If it's configured to load balance (default), some devices/requests will get routed via the slower secondary connection

 

[buzz88]

Have you configured your backup as failover ?
If it's configured to load balance (default), some devices/requests will get routed via the slower secondary connection

Load Balance was indeed check-marked. I thought that was necessary. I had also set up a rule to choose WAN2 as backup when WAN1 is dead. I have unchecked the Load Balance option now. Hopefully, that does the trick. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[rr9]

What would be a cheaper option compared to ER605 to merge multiple WAN connections? TL-R470T+ ? TL-R480T+ ?

@buzz88 I am assuming that deselecting the load balancer fixed your issue.

 

[buzz88]

What would be a cheaper option compared to ER605 to merge multiple WAN connections? TL-R470T+ ? TL-R480T+ ?

@buzz88 I am assuming that deselecting the load balancer fixed your issue.

It worked at first, but problems persisted with the connectivity and speed. Eventually, I got tired of troubleshooting and returned to the original networking. Two connections are used on two separate floors, and if one fails, we just try to move or use hotspot.

Had put up ER605 for sale in the Classified. But it went unsold.

 

[enthusiast29]

What would be a cheaper option compared to ER605 to merge multiple WAN connections? TL-R470T+ ? TL-R480T+ ?

OpenWRT can do it on a normal gigabit router.

 

[guest_999]

OpenWRT can do it on a normal gigabit router.

Finding such a router with decent hardware to smoothly run 200mbps+40mbps net connections at a reasonable price is itself a challenge not to mention steep learning curve of openwrt in such cases.

 

[enthusiast29]

Finding such a router with decent hardware to smoothly run 200mbps+40mbps net connections at a reasonable price is itself a challenge not to mention steep learning curve of openwrt in such cases.

Make your own with some old mini pc or a normal PC + USB 3.0 to Ethernet dongle. Everything's on youtube.

Even an old Pentium dual core from LGA775 era is enough so are modern Celerons.

 

[rr9]

@vishalrao What type of internet connections do you have. Do you think the ER605 will be able to use a slow connection as failover like the case is here with @buzz88 ?

ref: https://techenclave.com/threads/dual-ethernet-connections-help.211744/post-2434877

 

[rockyo27]

I have two internet connections to my home. One for main use and one for backup. Since both are unlimited, we used two separate networks for different floors for a long time and everything worked well.

Recently, I decided to buy TpLink ER605 Multi-WAN router to combine the two network connections and automate the backup process.

Here's the network :
View attachment 130347

The problem is everything works, but the internet is slower than before. When i speed-test using Fast.com or www.speedtest.net, I can see that my network speed is not changed and I am getting 190+ Mbps. But day-2-day experience is slow. Apps on phones are slower. Sometimes, internet just drops and comes back after 30-40 seconds. Random internet drops never happened before i put ER605 in there. While watching Netflix or Hotstar also never buffered before, but it happens randomly sometimes now. The ER605 works as it should, so I don't know what could be the problem.

Alternatively, I am wondering how best to reconfigure this whole network. I am not knowledgeable on pfsense and managed switch and vlan and all, but I've seen people using all those in r/homelab and I have don't have the faintest idea where to begin to build something like this - https://i.redd.it/45qyjsp5iqp81.jpg Do I even need all that? My basic requirement is Gigabyte Ethernet connection to all devices on 1st floor and 2nd floor. And all digital devices should be able to connect to the NAS1 through ethernet. And it should be connected to both internet providers so that it stays always connected.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Do you dial for internet connectivity from ER605 or does the routers provided by ISP do that.....as i also have same setup but i use mikrotik Hex router for this and one connection which is my main connection i dial from my mikrotik router....my second connection which is jio i just put a lan on bridge mode and have assigned an ip range.....whenever my primary connection is down it switches to secondary and vice versa whenever my primary comes up.

 

[buzz88]

Do you dial for internet connectivity from ER605 or does the routers provided by ISP do that.....as i also have same setup but i use mikrotik Hex router for this and one connection which is my main connection i dial from my mikrotik router....my second connection which is jio i just put a lan on bridge mode and have assigned an ip range.....whenever my primary connection is down it switches to secondary and vice versa whenever my primary comes up.

Both connections have their own routers provided by ISPs. Those two routers had DHCP and Wifi disabled, and connect to the ER605, which handles the DHCP, then through the ethernet switch I have two routers for each floors working as Access Points.

 

[enthusiast29]

Both connections have their own routers provided by ISPs. Those two routers had DHCP and Wifi disabled, and connect to the ER605, which handles the DHCP, then through the ethernet switch I have two routers for each floors working as Access Points.

So the ISP routers were not really dumb but providing routing as well as dialing up (probably PPPoE) to establish uplink. In short those router were not in bridge mode.

 

[buzz88]

So the ISP routers were not really dumb but providing routing as well as dialing up (probably PPPoE) to establish uplink. In short those router were not in bridge mode.

That is correct. Couldn't figure out how to put them in bridge mode. ISP guys were no help with that. One was a custom ZTE and one was Tenda N301. Couldn't just remove them either.

 

[guest_999]

Make your own with some old mini pc or a normal PC + USB 3.0 to Ethernet dongle. Everything's on youtube.

Even an old Pentium dual core from LGA775 era is enough so are modern Celerons.

More hassle as even using mATX mobo would be much bigger than using a router while miniITX would need more expenses in the form of specialized cabinet & power supply. Of course if this much hassle is not an issue & person doesn't mind the learning curve then it's fine. Personally I would just get two used tplink N300 router for 300-400 on olx & use them as wired APs with 40mbps connection on 2 floors & switch the connection manually to it when primary 200mbps connection goes down.

 

[vishalrao]

@rr9 @buzz88 TLDR at the end...

I have 4 connections - TataPlay 1gbit, Microscan 500 mbps, PDPL 300 mbps (these are FTTH) and Airtel 4G wifi CPE (huawei b310 something) which gives me 20 mbps on average.

(I prefer to keep wireless/4G as backup - can't wait for 5G FWA broadband to be available - I just happen to have so many FTTH due to long-term plans not yet expired for now)

Now I want the Tata 1gbit connection to be my primary one and the rest to be failover/backup in steps - so tata first, then the microscan/pdpl, then finally the 4G.

What I have done is currently keep the 4G device turned off (because I worry about the device failing due to prolonged use) and I only manually switch it on and connect to the ER605 in case all my FTTH get disconnected either due to cable cut (not yet happened touchwood) or power outage or other failure in the OLT side. We have same OLT for all ISPs in my society.

I have connected in order - Tata to ER605 main/first WAN port, then Microscan to the 2nd WAN2 (LAN1) port , then PDPL to WAN3/LAN2 port and last 2 ports are currently operating in LAN mode, but I have the older v1.0 hardwar which allows up to 4 WAN - the newer v2 hardware only supports 3 WANs.

TLDR - Currently I have Tata+Microscan in load balance, and 3rd PDPL in failover/backup (when "both primary WANs fail" option selected) BUT note in the WAN bandwidth settings I have specified MAX value of 1000000 kbps for the first TATA link and set a very LOW value (5000 and 3000 kbps) for the Microscan and PDPL links AND then in the load balance settings page I have enabled all three options "load balancing" , "Application Optimized Routing" and "Bandwidth based balance routing" (WAN+WAN2/LAN1).

So what happens here is the ER605 most of the time (MOSTLY) picks the Tata link for all apps/connections due to the very high bandwidth setting compared to the others and sticks to that for apps/clients which is what I want. and if the Tata link fails then it connects to the 2nd Microscan one (thus being 2nd failover/backup behaviour and not load balanced really) and if both are down, then the ER605 switches over to the PDPL configured as backup.

@buzz88 I noticed if you disable load balancing option the ER605 prefers the LATTER WAN ports, so it will FIRST choose the 2nd port (microscan) link to connect to clients/devices/apps and if that fails it moves to the 1st TATA link - so in reverse order. Maybe the newer v2 hardware with its latest firmware may behave differently. If you still have your ER605 in your possession, try what I did - dont put your slower connect as backup/failover but put it as load balanced with all load balance options enabled and in your WAN setting set the bandwidth values to MAX 1000000 (kbps) for your main link and set to very LOW values (like 1000 kbps) for your 2nd connection and the ER605 should MOSTLY connect to the "primary" and rarely to the "secondary" when both are online and should just pick the available one if the other goes down.

Anyhow, I guess I will soon downsize this mess to just 1 ftth connection (tata) and 1 wireless connection (hoping for 5G soon) as backup.

It worked at first, but problems persisted with the connectivity and speed. Eventually, I got tired of troubleshooting and returned to the original networking. Two connections are used on two separate floors, and if one fails, we just try to move or use hotspot.

Had put up ER605 for sale in the Classified. But it went unsold.

Try swapping the 2 internet connections in your ER605 so the fast link is on 2nd port and slow backup link is on the first main WAN port (remember to also swap the configs in ER605 WAN page)... because of the behaviour I noticed in my v1 hardware ER605 of it prefering the 2nd WAN port over the 1st one when load balancing option is disabled... Or set the bandwidth values as I did (MAX for the main link and MIN for the second link) and enable all load balancing options.