I have two phones, and I need two separate phones for reasons that I have outlined in other posts. One is my US based iPhone and the other is an Android phone that I use for my UK number and UK apps. Given that I don't use the UK phone too much, I figured there might something else I could do with it. The Android phone I am using is a POCO 3M which is made by Xiaomi. It is a dual SIM 5G Android and it works very well. It's actually an excellent phone.
So what to do with this phone? Given that my wife and I are moving again soon, a wireless router might be a fun idea. Now I could tether with my iPhone and that would work just fine, but I am curious as to how this would work with the android phone.
The Wireless Router Project
By getting a 5G data plan, I can run a wifi network for my iPad if my main internet connection goes out. The diagram shows my proposed set up. I have a primary ISP connection (1Gx1G fiber) that feeds three mesh routers (only one shown in the diagram). The android phone is usually connected to the WiFi but has UK phone service on it, that does work in the US but I have the roaming and data turned off. However I can receive calls which is all I really use it for,
I drew this...
Tethering
Most modern phones will allow tethering or the set up of a hotspot. However, usually when a hotspot is enabled, the phone data connection will switch from the WiFi, because this is now the AP for the hotspot, to the mobile data connection (3/4/5G).
The hotspot config is simple and described everywhere on the internet so I am going to assume you know how that is done. The POCO takes two physical SIMs so I can control which SIM does what (see screen cap below)
SIM Configuration
What I found during testing, and this came as a surprise to me, is that the WiFi connection continues to work, even when in tethering mode! Even better is that if the WiFi connection to the phone goes down, the data connection will automatically switch over to mobile data. This of course is awesome because this is what an actual router would do with two ISP connections.
Performance
I measured performance on my iPad Pro using OOKLA speed test. The table below shows the performance figures.
_Down Up Ping___
Direct WiFi connection: 516mb / 483mb 23ms
Hotspot using Mint 5G: 31mb / 4mb 103ms
Hotspot using WiFi: 133mb / 124mb 10ms
I used IP Chicken to verify which connection was in use.
The iPad on the direct WiFI connection has excellent performance, The performance when connected to the android phone (using the WiFi still) is 20% of the direct connection but given that I am not a gamer, this performance hit really doesn't affect my usage of the iPad. It 'felt' about the same. The 5G performance (and I don't have a great 5G connection at my home) was definitely slower but again, I didn't really feel it that much. Performance is good enough for email, chat, casual browsing and writing blog posts.
How does the iPhone fare?
After the Android test, I figured I would see if the iPhone would do the same, however it does not. The way the iPhone is set up , you can see the iPhone hotspot is always on (As seen from my iPad).
The WiFi hotspot is always there
_Down Up
Direct WiFi: 300mb / 300mb
Hotspot: 40mb / 15mb
Conclusion
The use of the Android phone as a mobile router with fail over between WiFi and mobile data works extremely well. The next step is to see how well it holds up when my internet goes out.
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