MX65 Failover to 4G with Australian NBN through NTD

[HamishMc]

New here and could not find and answer to this setup/question - although there might be one here that i've missed.

I am running an MX65 connected to the Australian NBN (National Broadband Network) provided over HFC (Hybrid Fubre Cable).

Essentially, the NBN/Internet connection is provided by Co-Ax cable into an NBN Co. supplied NTD (Network Termination Device).  The NTD connects to the MX65 on port 1.

I have a Huawei E3276 (this is howthe MX65 identifies the USB Dongle) plugged into the MX65.

The MX65 shows the Cellular device as being ready.

However, when the NBN/Internet connection drops out, it is not failing over.  I have tested the USB Dongle in my laptop and it is working.

I suspect that the MX65 is still seeing and active WAN between the NTD and the MX65 - it's just that their no internet connection to the NTD.

Is there a way that the MX65 can identify that the internet connection has dropped off (from the NTD) and engage the 4G dongle ??

Many thanks

[jdsilva]

Hey @HamishMc,

If there's a direct failure, i.e. the WAN port on the MX loses link, it should fail over immediately (pending the establishment of the cell connection as it's not actually active until it's needed). If there's an indirect failure, i.e. an outage somewhere upstream in your provider's network, then failover can take up to 300 seconds as detailed in this KB:

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Connection_Monitoring_for_WAN_Failo...

It sounds like you're talking about the latter scenario, so how long are you waiting? Are you giving it the full 5 minutes plus a bit for cell negotiation?

[HamishMc]

Sounds a lot like scenario 2 - have had to wait longer than 5 mins.

Thanks for getting back so soon

[CrouchingWorm]

Hi folks, I'm having no end of trouble with my HFC NBN connection also failing logically, not physically. i.e. the IP connectivity is failing, but not the physical link. So I need to wait for at least 300 seconds for polling to indicate the link is down and failing over to my NightHawk..
So I'm also having prolonged outages.

ISP is unable to help with finding the fault... I'll keep trying.

Super irritating.

I'm taking to having to reboot my HFC modem to get the logical link back up... 

[HamishMc]

Thanks for the Kudos but I still don't have an answer.

Last week and, again today, I had to manually unplug the cable from the Meraki to the NBN Co-NTD to force the backup 4G connection to activate.

I still don't know how to ensure the 4G back up activates automatically when the NBN/Internet connection drops out.

[nl_carey]

I tried USB dongles but really didn't have much luck.  Showed as connected, worked on a PC, but no traffic passed, or failover pretty much just like you.  I ended up getting a Netgear Nighthawk MR1100 for backup purposes, set it to IP passthrough mode,,and connected it.  With ethernet set to never turn off, and battery removed, it's working a treat right now.  Testing MG21's for our corporate connections though.  The MR1100 is faster, but prefer the cloud managed model for support.

[HamishMc]

I was thinking along the same lines but with the Netgear 4G LTE Modem LB2120 - I've set these up before but where I had a router based on a Shuttle PC running Linux (and no NTD).  Seemed to work pretty well so was thinking about it here.

Appreciate your solution and, while it's not a solution for the MX65 to failover to 4G, it is an automated workaround - better than having to run to the comms cabinet and unplug/plug in cables.

Thanks 

[nl_carey]

It's automated failover much like the USB solution <should> be, the MX65 will failover to secondary internet automatically when the primary internet fails. Mine is failing over on NBN sometimes twice a day - and you get the emails to prove it 🙂

LB2120 looks ok (I almost bought one), and better bridge mode it seems, but the MR1100 is more use for us when travelling if we need it, so I was hoping for more use out of it that way.