Air Card with Peplink router, is UTM possible?

Hi, Ray, and welcome to the UTM Community!

Is the Peplink just a wireless router or does it need to be between the UTM and your Internet connection?  It's better if you can get your public IP on the External interface of the UTM.

Cheers - Bob

Thank you Bob!!!

Actually I ran across this article (https://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/119010.aspxthat) that describes how to put the air card directly to the UTM as you mentioned.  I am going to test that tonight and if that works I am golden.  I did not expect the UTM to support that type of USB modem but it seems that it does...  turns out I was making things more complicated that they needed to be.

I will post the results after testing.  Thanks again for the response.

First let me apologize for not knowing all the correct network terminology.  I am a DBA but I have little network experience.  This is just a necessary hobby because my wife and I live in the boondocks and both work from home.  This Air Card is the only we can connect to the internet with enough bandwidth to VPN to our work networks.  The problem is that our current router does not have enough security to control our 2 kids internet consumption.  I have to control it because they have cost us $200 + on our monthly bill more than once.

My test results:  

Tried to connect the USB modem directly to the UTM but the connection would not complete.  It seems there are insufficient parameters in the UTM to successfully use the USB modem.

So I am back to my original plan.  I am thinking that the router that I have which is able to use the USB modem to successfully connect to the internet could be the gateway to the internet.  Then it seems I would just present a standard Ethernet connection for the UTM.  Then from the UTM I could connect the other UTM NIC to a hub to connect the rest of my home network.  I would disable the wireless AP on the router that is hosting the modem.  So the only function of the old router is to host the modem and be the internet Ethernet connection for the UTM.  Then the rest of my network would be downstream of the UTM.  I would disable the DCHP server on the old router and let the UTM take that functionality.

USB Modem -> Router -> UTM -> HUB -> home network

Is this a workable solution?

"[...] they have cost us $200 + on our monthly bill more than once." - Do they make junior-size ploughing harnesses? [;)]

Your plan sounds workable,  I would put the old router in bridge mode so that you can have a public IP on the UTM's external interface.

Then again, from a licensing point of view, if you work exclusively from home, you might want to leave the WiFi on with different credentials so that you and your wife can do your work and avoid passing "business" traffic through a UTM with a home-use license.  If you only work from home on evenings and weekends, then I think you're within the range of fair use with the home license.

Cheers - Bob

"[...] they have cost us $200 + on our monthly bill more than once." - Do they make junior-size ploughing harnesses? [;)]

Your plan sounds workable,  I would put the old router in bridge mode so that you can have a public IP on the UTM's external interface.

Then again, from a licensing point of view, if you work exclusively from home, you might want to leave the WiFi on with different credentials so that you and your wife can do your work and avoid passing "business" traffic through a UTM with a home-use license.  If you only work from home on evenings and weekends, then I think you're within the range of fair use with the home license.

Cheers - Bob