Guide To Buy 4G/LTE Router or Hotspot & Extend Network

It is probably obvious that when I buy a thing write about it. It is normal to get fooled by the devices sold by Internet Service Provider (ISP). Most of us many useless 2G, 3G USB Modems, which will help us elaborating the history of Mobile Internet to our kids. These days it got complicated with Long Term Evolution (LTE) and networking matters used as buzz words like Cat4 (at least the way they use). Here is a Foolproof 4G/LTE Router or Hotspot Buying Guide. We are talking about mobile routers.

Background of This Guide To Buy 4G/LTE Router or Hotspot & Extend Network

As my buying is for our vintage companies, the number of articles has been 5000+ on this website! That is why there is guide to fix ZTE MF Reliance 3G USB Modem With OS X Yosemite, articles like Reliance 4G Wi-Pod Ends 3G OS X USB Driver Pain, Airtel 4G Huawei E5573 WiFi Hotspot, AirTel Home WiFi Huawei B310 LTE CPE Router Review and so on. I have load balancer for making the internet connection stable too.

4G/LTE Router or Hotspot Buying Guide

Briefly, you should understand the basics of hub, router, switch, how does a modem work, what is router etc. Broadly we should keep eyes on :

1. Connectivity : These routers usually have a specific network range. Like they should support 2G, 3G/HSPA, LTE. Currently all routers should support WiFi to connect to internet easily from computers running any operating system, smartphone, tablet etc. They should have support for antennae.
2. Types of routers : All routers, hotspots sold by the ISPs are entry level. They can use the buzz words like MiFi, Hotspot etc.
3. Security : Routers normally offer superior security . Using the firewalls, the level of network security can be avoided. However most of these routers have no clearcut wordings on security by hardware.
4. Router Input : A true router should have many options to allow and accept different types of services from ISP. These can be RJ45 Ethernet Cable, RJ11, SIM card. Commonly what ISPs sell has only SIM card option and what are available on the market has RJ45 port. Input port performs several functions including protocol decapsulation, lookup and forwarding function to output port. Your local cable operators may offer Ethernet connections at very competitive price.
5. Router Output : Currently WiFi, USB, RJ45 and RJ11. RJ45 is for ethernet, which is a network technology used for LAN. RJ11 is for telephone network. These are mobile routers.
6. USB vs Ethernet : Most routers has USB port connection facility with a buzz word smart-router-devices. A real router should have Ethernet to connect as it is the way in networking. USB is in general inferior and suitable for Dongle.
7. Cat4, Cat5 : They are talking about Cat4 Ethernet Cable Support on output. CAT4 cables are a lower quality than CAT5. CAT5, CAT5E, and CAT6 are the standards for network cabling today. Data centres may use Cat8. CAT4 factually of no use and difficult to use the connection.
8. Support for WiFi extender, AP : Important if you want to convert the signal to traditional Cat5 ethernet.

Factually router as hardware is a big bottleneck for speed. You can not do much as spectrum is very difficult matter and better to rely on ISP for the modem part.

Guide To Extend Network

We were talking about mobile routers with cellular support, WiFi-as-WAN. Depends on usage whether we need to supply the “bandwidth” always-on via Cat5 ethernet cable or just share it to give access to router. Are you talking about real networking stuffs like from Juniper or Cisco with 4G sim slot? They are called 4G LTE Router. ISPs supply just bad stuffs.

Bridge will simple forward the connection after authentication whereas router will route. You can look at this :

Buying those will need basic help peoples of telecommunication for your country. Cradlepoint also has such with quite good support. For professional grade setup, you need professional grade hardware.

In general, you have these options :

1. Wireless bridge with switch
2. Wireless bridge adapter
3. Access Point (AP) client bridge (if your mobile router supports then you can use)
4. If your mobile router supports WiFi extender then a repeater can use the wifi as input and give ethernet output
5. There are Ethernet over Power range of solutions.

In repeater mode they will use the same wireless network name (SSID). Consumer routers can share a single internet connection among multiple computers. This thing is known as extending the wifi range of router via Cat5 cabling. As the extender is designed to work as an AP-client bridge and the “router” you are proposing to use is going to function more or less as a switch. Switch allows to share a single port on router among multiple Ethernet devices. Switches handle data based on the MAC address in the data packet, automatically learns the MAC address of each device connected to its ports.

We will suggest a device agonistic approach. That means, whatever WiFi router your ISP supplied will not matter. You can add more Internet connection to the pool with a network loadbalancer. If you are using a hotspot like Huawei E5573 and a WiFi to Ethernet Bridge, then you need to tweak the software settings for the bridge. They are ½ routers, not exactly routers. The WiFi is only useful.