Can you have 2 internet providers

alankearn

My 5 Year old Pixel C Tablet is wi fi connected to my plugged in Sky Router, I am thinking of buying one of these

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-M7350-Portable-Unlocked-management/dp/B06XC16QC1/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=tp-link+m7350&qid=1706383589&sr=8-3

 Would it be simple to switch often from the Sky internet supply to the Mobile broadband supply, if possible it would help if someone could explain how.

Thanks

400ixl

What are you trying to achieve?

You could have a Mobile router with its won wifi SSID and manually switch a connected device between that wifi and the Sky broadbands wifi router. Not sure why you would want both though.

What is not easy to do is to have both routers working together to increase the bandwidth to a single device. It can be done but not straight forward.

flashg67

I WFH and live in a rural area so my 'normal' broadband does sometimes cut out, so I have a 4g router as back up just in case. You do have to reconnect each device manually to whichever broadband source you want, I know of no way to auto switch everything.

alankearn

Because occasionly I want to leave the tablet with my wife wfe in a care home

QrizB

alankearn said:

 Would it be simple to switch often from the Sky internet supply to the Mobile broadband supply, if possible it would help if someone could explain how.

Yes it's very simple.

You tell the tablet there's a second wifi service that it can connect to, and give it the details of the mobile hotspot.

If the hotspot is turned off, it'll still conenect to your Sky broadband wifi. Turn the hotspot on and it'll decide for itself which one to connect to.

Take the tablet and the hotspot away from home, and the only one it'll see will be the hotspot.

alankearn

flashg67 said:

I WFH and live in a rural area so my 'normal' broadband does sometimes cut out, so I have a 4g router as back up just in case. You do have to reconnect each device manually to whichever broadband source you want, I know of no way to auto switch everything.

Yes I understand I would have to reconnect to the Sky router  using the Sky password but I wondered if it would create any problems

Emmia

alankearn said:

flashg67 said:

I WFH and live in a rural area so my 'normal' broadband does sometimes cut out, so I have a 4g router as back up just in case. You do have to reconnect each device manually to whichever broadband source you want, I know of no way to auto switch everything.

Yes I understand I would have to reconnect to the Sky router  using the Sky password but I wondered if it would create any problems

It won't create any problems. 

Your phone/tablet/laptop would have both internet sources with the relevant passwords saved, so if you had it at the care home it would attach to one (which it can 'see') and if at home to the other. If both are available, you can pick which one to connect to.

My smartphone will connect automatically to our WiFi at home, to the WiFi on the Tube when I'm there, or the WiFi at work.

PHK

alankearn said:

flashg67 said:

I WFH and live in a rural area so my 'normal' broadband does sometimes cut out, so I have a 4g router as back up just in case. You do have to reconnect each device manually to whichever broadband source you want, I know of no way to auto switch everything.

Yes I understand I would have to reconnect to the Sky router  using the Sky password but I wondered if it would create any problems

You won't need to reconnect with the password or renter the password. The tablet will save the details of any number of different WiFi.  It will automatically connect. You only need to put the details in once. 

So if there's a mobile broadband with you wife and you have Sky at home, it will automatically connect to Sky at home and mobile broadband when with your wife. 

If both were in the same place it will connect to whichever is the best signal. 

If you wanted to manually switch then pull down the quick settings then press and hold on the WiFi symbol. This will give you a list of available WiFi. Just tap the one you want. 

RumRat

Check if the care home has WiFi she could use...

outtatune

If the 4G sim you use only has a limited amount of data you'll need to get used to regularly checking which device you're connected to. Devices won't automatically reconnect back to the preferred network when it comes back online.

I don't know if there are apps that will monitor that sort of thing for you.

EnPointe

Short answer yes 

at home  we have a wired  connection via Virgin  with a virgin hub or some nature  which presents  a 4 port  ethernet  router as well as WiFI and the landline  (voip) socket  -  my computer  and a seperate SIP VoIP  terminal  are on a physical ethernet connector  via a  simple 4/5 port switch in my room 

My mobile phone is on O2  and i can  set this to be a mobile hotspot  so any   wireless device  could use that  - equally  my phone spends a  fair amount of time  using data via  the  wifi fro mthe  physical virgin  connection 

I also have  a  work ipad  which  due to the nature of the role has an able to roam UK networks sim - most of the time that is on it's sim 

i am aware of peopel who have  routers which can take multiple  hard wired connectiosn and negotiate / load balance  between them  , ditto routers with a fallback sim slot