Balance One, both WANs dead, ideas for Cellular

Everything Else
1

I have a Balance One. This morning a work crew working on the street cut both our WANs. So we are without internet.

Looking for advice how to rig up something temporarily.

  • I have a Verizon MiFi 7730L with a data plan
  • I have some iPhones with data plans.

Issues:

  • The Balance One is located in an internal server closet, inside a rack which is a pretty good Faraday cage.
  • the MiFi 7730 has WiFi, but not ethernet.
  • the MiFi doesn’t get great reception in the server closet
  • I have a Yagi antenna for the MiFi
  • I’m not using the internal WiFi on the Balance One for anythying.

Ideas:

  • can I plug in a USB cable from the MiFi to the Balance One?
  • can I set up the Balance One to use the MiFI’s WiFI - I think this is called “WiFI as WAN” ? If so, I could put the MiFi upstairs near a window and broadcast WiFi down to the Balance One
2

Although the Verizon MiFI 7730 is not listed here: https://www.peplink.com/technology/4g3g-modem-support/ I went ahead and plugged it into the Balance one USB port, set it up in the Balance One / Network / Mobile WAN, and it seems to work! Super cool. Perhaps Peplink should update the documentation to show that the 7730 is compabtible?

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3

Awesome! Very glad it worked.

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4

Am I right that the Balance One can’t do WiFi as WAN (e.g. using WiFi from a hotspot as one of the WAN input)? I couldn’t see any options for enabling this.

5

Yes you are right it cannot do this.

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