Internet Failover
Keeping Home Internet Connection Reliable in Bad Weather and Blackouts
Most ISPs provide a modem + router gateway combo to simplify network setup for the widest audience but if their network fails or is unreachable down for some reason, some IOT devices like cameras and smart locks that we increasingly rely on can become useless. Also, some of us have mobile deadzones in our living spaces and rely on Wi-Fi for messaging and calling most of the time. So to stay connected during power outages, storms and natural disasters, it's a good idea to setup the home network to have failover capability, or internet backup. My ISP offers an upgraded gateway that's supposed to failover to their cellular network, but while researching solutions I discovered that most people didn’t have good experiences. Also, I'd prefer not to put all of my eggs in one basket - so to speak - just in case SHTF and both their wire and mobile networks are unreachable.
TLDR; Decouple network components (modem, router, wifi access point) to provide more flexible configurations and redundancy during outages and scheduled maintenance. This setup also has the benefit of allowing upgrades to equipment as technology improves because the industries don't innovate at the same rate.
Original Setup
xfinity xFi router w/ xFi pod "mesh" extenders (ISP-provided)
New Setup w/ Failover
Topology
Multi-WAN router: TP-Link Omada Gigabit VPN Router ER605 V2 in Standalone Mode
Primary WAN: xFi modem/gateway (because free rental promotion at signup. I plan to switch in the future) in bridge mode - allowing the routing to be managed by a dedicated router
Failover WAN: Netgear LTE modem + T-mobile $10 30GB Cellular Data-only Plan
Wireless AP: eero 6+ wifi mesh in Bridge mode
This setup effectively keeps devices on the same subnet so that devices connected to wifi can communicate with devices wired to router like the NAS
Update (2 months later)
Eschew the advanced features of TP-Link Omada for the simplicity of smaller devices:
Netgear cellular modem with native failover and SMS alerts
Netgear 5-port switch
eero+ AP / Router for mesh wifi
