5G Backup

Apologies for the lengthy preamble. Back in 2001 when we moved into this house we started with Comcast cable modem internet access that delivered 5/1 mbps. We were committed to Comcast for cable TV since we were a Tivo household. Tivo DVRs leveraged cable and the Cable Card decryption scheme.

It also happens that Comcast’s internet access was not very reliable. That caused me to get a DSL service installed as a backup. The DSL service provided by Sprint was modest. We are some 11,400 feet from the nearest central office, which meant that 1.5 Mbps / 768 kbps was the best we could achieve.

Over a number of years, Comcast’s cable modem service got both faster and (somewhat) more reliable. Still, I retained the relatively pokey DSL service as a backup. After Hurricane Ike in 2008 I felt vindicated in that choice. Throughout and after that terrible storm we had sustained phone and internet access via that DSL service. In contrast, Comcast was out for a month.

There came a time when I realized that I had not used the DSL in over a year. And 4G wireless broadband had become available, so I could tether to a phone in a pinch. That combination supported ending the DSL service, which suffered declining cost/performance.

All that is back-story. In all that time, we never had a “dual-WAN” arrangement. Failover between the ISPs was manual. Typically, repatch the WAN port of the router to the desired modem, then load a different WAN configuration. Not difficult. But manual.

Well, no longer! Last week I took delivery of the new Ubiquiti Unifi 5G Backup device. Newly introduced for just $99 this wee magic wand promises an affordable, automatic backup to a 5G wireless service. It’s not locked to any carrier. At the outset it works with AT&T, T-Mobile, and presumably their MVNOs.