Router with multiple WLAN interfaces and 4G/5G?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi,

I want to buy a new OpenWRT compatible router and am looking for a recommendation what to buy.

I'm not sure how unusual it is what I would like to do, namely:

  • there are two connections to the internet: the preferred one is via a wireless network where the router has to act as a client; this is not always available though and when this goes out of reach, I would like the router to automatically fall back to a mobile connection for which I have a sim card, 4G would currently be good enough, if available 5G would be nicer just to be future-proof. I'm hoping the failover thing can be implemented with a solution such as mwan3 with OpenWRT.

  • some client devices will connect via RJ45, some others need wireless, so the router must also act as an AP for a WiFi network at the same time; together with the above this necessitates at least two fully independent wireless interfaces where one can be the AP and the other the client.

  • first and foremost, I need the biggest possible stability. I need this to work whether I'm around or not around and when something disconnects it has to recover by itself. A device that acts up and needs manual attention every other day is absolutely not an option.

Do you have any recommendations on a device that could do this? I'm perfectly willing to pay a bit more to get a high quality device that only needs setting up once and then just works for a very extended period of time.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

2

Do you need both 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz for the AP? If not, many routers have dual band support and you can use one band as a client and the other for the AP.

I am not aware of routers that have multiple radios for the same band, though some may exist. If you need dual band for the AP and don't find a suitable router, you could get one with USB support and get a separate USB WiFi adapter for the WLAN interface.

3

Thanks for helping!

Still have to think about what bands I need. I could possibly make it work with one band as the client and the other for the AP as you suggest.

The USB solution is always an option, I could also use that to plug an LTE modem if there is none built in. What I'm always somewhat concerned about is the stability of such an approach. Judging from my experience with USB devices attached to desktop computers, failures and disconnects are not infrequent. In your experience, is it possible to plug in an LTE modem and/or a WiFi adapter to a router via USB and rely on this running without interruption for very extended periods of time?