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I have two internet connections, one via ADSL which is fast but costs money, and one via LTE which is slow but free.

My setup is a few Time Capsules, a Mac Pro, a Mac Mini, several MacBooks, iPhones and iPads, and two ReadyNAS NASes.

I want to have it all combined into one network, where the ADSL and the LTE connections both can be accessed selectively on the client Macs, as well as the NASes. I usually create AFP mounts on the Macs.

I have it working somewhat on the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini. I simply run two networks; No. 1 which is wired (as well as wireless) with the NASes and the LTE connection, and no. 2 which is wireless with the ADSL connection. That works on the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini, but not on the MacBooks. On the MacBooks I can only access one WiFi connection at a time, and when I select the no. 2 wireless network, I have no access to the NASes.

Can I combine it all into one network, and somehow decide on the MacBooks which internet connection I want to use?

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  • In terms of combining, both networks provide access to the internet, so in terms of routes they both provide the same WAN routes. If you want them on one network then you need to configure them as seperate gateways in your routing tables. You can keep them as seperate wireless networks by splitting them up in subnets - configuring routes to route between the two local networks but using the LTE or ADSL gateway depending on which wifi you connect to
    – crasic
    Jan 30, 2016 at 4:01
  • I am not sure that gets me what I want... I'd like to be able to select between 2 networks, both via Ethernet and both via WiFi, which both have access to the same NASes and printer, but with each their internet connection. I don't know about routing tables, and I don't know if you are even able to select between different networks via Ethernet?
    – Bo K.
    Jan 30, 2016 at 13:39

1 Answer 1

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There are a few ways that you can do this, but my personal choice would be this:

Primary Router and DHCP: LTE Router eg. 192.168.1.1
Client DHCP Pool: 192.168.1.10 onwards
ADSL Gateway: eg. 192.168.1.2, DHCP OFF, connected via LAN port to LAN port of Primary

Connect every client to the primary router via wifi or ethernet however you like. By default the DHCP server onboard will pass out .1.1 to all the clients and they will use LTE. If the LTE goes down they will stop and not use ADSL "without permission" and leave you with a large bill.

Then on the Macbooks or other computers you can create a little terminal script to switch over the connection. I'm a windows user but it will be something like this:

route -n add 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.2

and to remove

route -n delete 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.2

These can be saved as icons in finder (maybe the dock) and just double clicked to switch your connection at will.

The only downside I see to this method is that its awkward to change gateway on mobile devices if you need to do that, probably about 90 seconds to do each way.

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