SD-WAN Starlink 5G failover kept a Colorado remote-work setup online
A Colorado household used UniFi failover and policy routing to shift between T-Mobile 5G and Starlink after repeated connection drops.
By Dominic Okoye · Staff Writer
· 3 min read
A remote-working couple in the Colorado Rockies used an SD-WAN Starlink 5G failover setup to mask internet outages after finding that the fastest wired option available to them was DSL. The Register writer said the household configured a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine SE with T-Mobile 5G as its primary connection and Starlink as backup, reporting that at least a dozen drops over two months passed without interrupted calls, video buffering or timed-out pages.
The account is a single household’s experience rather than an independently verified network test. It illustrates how two functions associated with enterprise SD-WAN, automatic path failover and policy-based routing, can be used in a home office where neither available wireless link has been consistently reliable.
How does SD-WAN Starlink 5G failover work?
Failover gives one internet connection priority and holds another in reserve. UniFi says that when it determines the primary WAN is unreachable, it redirects traffic to the next-priority link, then returns traffic when the primary recovers. Its default health check marks a WAN down when two of three probes fail, though administrators can change those criteria.
That differs from load balancing. UniFi distributes new outbound connections across WANs according to configured weights, but uses connection hashing to keep an individual session on the same link until it ends. It does not turn two separate services into one faster connection for every session.
The writer chose failover over load balancing because the reported T-Mobile connection was faster. At the location, T-Mobile 5G delivered near-gigabit download speeds and uploads of roughly 30 Mbps to 40 Mbps, according to the report. Starlink’s upload performance topped out at about 30 Mbps in the household’s use. The writer said DSL service was advertised at up to 20 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up, without a guarantee.
What did the two-WAN setup change?
Before installing the gateway, the household could have operated separate networks and manually changed Wi-Fi networks when a service failed. That approach would not protect an active voice or video call from interruption and would require maintaining separate local networks and rules, the writer said.
With both provider gateways connected to the UniFi device, the household received a notification showing T-Mobile had gone down, Starlink had become active, and T-Mobile had later been restored. The notifications were noticed two hours after the event, according to the report. In the writer’s experience, automatic failover improved continuity versus relying on either link alone.
The household also used policy-based routing to prefer Starlink for the writer’s wife’s work laptop because the writer considered it the more reliable link. The reported logs showed two Starlink drops in the preceding month, including one overnight. UniFi documents that policy routes can direct traffic from selected devices, networks or destinations to a specified WAN; with the Kill Switch disabled, that traffic can move to the default or next-priority interface if the chosen WAN fails.
The setup required more than attaching two cables. The writer said Starlink’s gateway was put in bypass mode, while Wi-Fi was disabled on the T-Mobile gateway through its own utility. No pricing, hardware cost or service-plan cost was disclosed. For this household, the value was continuity, not a claim that the two links offered identical performance or universally better service.
This story draws on original reporting from The Register.
