Using the Papwave MAX BR1 Pro 5G simultaenously as Wifi Hub and Access Point

Product Discussion Pepwave MAX
1

Hi everyone,

I am new to the whole network architecture design theme and WAN networks and have a question regarding my specific setup.

In my setup I have a device, which creates a Wifi Network to forward data to an application running on a tablet. This device is only capable of creating a Wifi network and to capable of joining an external one to forward data. Let’s call this device “black box 1”.

Up until now the tablet had its own SIM to be able to access mobile data and connect to the internet. Now I would like to integrate the pepwave max br1 pro 5G as primary network router into my architecture.

The Architecture consists of the following devices (see the attached image):

  • A Starlink Flat High Performance Dish providing Internet Connectivity
  • The Pepwave MAX BR1 Pro 5G providing 5G Internet connectivity and ideally serving as central router for the network
  • The Pepwave Mobility 40G Antenna to boost the 5G signal
  • Black Box 1, which needs to forward data through its own Wifi network to a tablet, which is running an application
  • A tablet, which is running an application dependent on Black Box 1
  • Multiple 3rd party devices, which will be transmitting and receiving data through the network and over the internet connectivity

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Is the Pepwave MAX BR1 Pro 5G capable of connecting to the Black Box 1 Wifi, create a Wifi network of its own and use port forwarding to transmit the data from the Black Box 1 Wifi to the tablet?

Best regards

2

Yes. But. That’s a bit weird. The BR1 can connect to black Box 1 (BB1) using wifi WAN (using either the 2.4 or 5Ghz radio) and then devices on the LAN can access whatever Black Box 1 gives them access to. If it is not internet access, then you would need to set up an internet access outbound policy that sends all internet traffc via 5G/ starlink and doesn’t use the wifi WAN for internet access - otherwise your LAN clients will see intermittent access issues as the BR1 tries to load balance across all available links.

You’ll also want to either disable health check on the wifi wan, or set it to ping the BB1 IP address.

3

Thank you Martin, that answered my question.

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