If I understand you correctly, which I might not, you have two WAN connections and want to team them up them for outgoing traffic? Try a load balancing router ... TP Link makes some cheap ones.

But he only wants one. From his OP: "Experimenting to see if Mobile Broadband will give me an improved speed and then ditch the slow FTC package".

What he hasn't explained is what is special about the TP-Link. I haven't found the right form of words to get him to do so.

Is it part of a VPN for instance, with its MAC number set at his wife's employer's end. Is it on a Plusnet static IP address, also held at that same place. (Though presumably alterable if he can get a static address on EE).

It's all too woolly at the moment. Why can't his wife simply use the EE connection via the Huawei?

All sorts of unanswered questions.

Here is a simplified diag of my basic set-up
When I connect the Huawei router, in the Desktop Network Setting the Plusnet connection is disconnected

Same things occuers using EE 4Gee router

Router Diagram

One further clarification - are you setting the same SSID on the WiFI network?

Note: Setting separate channels but the *same* SSID is the same local network and will lead to the issues I pointed out above. Not good.

That helps.

Now an earlier question that a couple of us at least have raised. What did you mean by "when I connected the Huawei to the PN Server"?

I ask because Plusnet servers are at their end. If you put the same login details into the Huawei as you put into the TP-Link then one of them has to lose the broadband connection.

I assume you were supplied with different login details for the Huawei to connect to wireless broadband.

Similarly, as the previous poster said, if you are setting the same SSID in the two routers each with their expected WAN login details that will cause a right mess on your domestic wifi. In particular the TP-Link wifi is likely to see the Huawei as a stronger signal and swap to it. So do you mean that's what happens when you are connected to the EE mast, or do you mean the FTTC connection between the TP-Link and Plusnet is lost? Or both?

And as I posted earlier, you need to see if the EE connection will work well with both you and your wife using it. Is there something stopping you doing that? Because if there is, how will you ever ditch the FTTC?

Also as others have pointed out, the speed fluctuations on mobile broadband can be quite large.

If OP just wants to ‘test’ the quality/speed etc of the 4G connection - simplest solution would be to set a different SSID for the WiFi for the 4G connection.

Then just choose which connection to use from laptop etc.

Simples.

[don’t think OP is thinking anything more ‘fancy’ at this point, so don’t need load balance, round-robin, failover etc etc complication at this point…hopefully [smile]

I agree. That's what I've been suggesting in relation to both users.

He doesn't want both connections if the EE one will cope. So he should use it for both for his trialling. While he can still fall back to the FTTC.

That is exactly what I suggested in my earlier post, just have two wi-fi networks.

Looking at the Huawei E5576 specs it has an operating mode where it can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot or alternatively use a mobile data connection. They call it LTE/3G/Wi-Fi Auto Offload. The OP may have this activated so the Huawei is connecting the TP-Link Wi-Fi. which could definitely cause issues.

Huawei E5576 Spec

I am still baffled by the statement ..."when I connected the Huawei to the PN Server" No idea what this means. We are only getting rather limited information from the Op so are struggling to find out what is going on.

To my mind a red herring that. Makes no sense. Possibly a misunderstanding by the OP…

I had a very strong suspicion from the OP that he was trying to mistakenly join both routers at the WiFi level when he said in the last para of the OP

I have the TP-Link on Ch 2 and the Huawei on Ch11, so channel interference shouldn`t be the problem

Second post where he said:

The TP-Link and Huwei are not connected to each other in anyway
Two entirelly seperate routers, one feeding the Wi-Fi via Mobile PN the other via FTC

Finally the network diagram seals it for me; it’s pretty clear he’s using the same SSID (just setting different channels) and by virtue of that fact completely screwing up the operation of the LAN - as far as local DHCP, DNS and predicable gateway/ routing to the internet matters anyway.