How connect an LTE Router to an Airport Extreme?

Hello, I have a current Huawei B311-221 4G wifi router I'd like connect as a modem with an Airport Extreme (A1408 older flat style) doing the wifi router duty. The Huawei has an ethernet jack. At the moment I don't have landline internet and must use the 4G. By itself the Huawei is configured and working fine but I have various old and newer macs and use and old Express to send iTunes/Music to the stereo via Airplay. For now I'd just as soon use the Extreme for the simplicity of networking everything.

I tried playing around setting the Huwaei to bridge mode connecting its ethernet jack to the Extreme's WAN port, I did a hard reset of the Extreme hoping it would see the Huawei as a modem and configure itself but no luck. Airport Utility saw and set up the Extreme but there was no internet. LAN light lit up on the Huawei once connected to the Extreme and I tried several reboots of everything.

Passed the basics I'm pretty ignorant of networking and why I bought the Extreme and Express years ago, hopefully someone here can guide me through the set up or tell me what I want to do is not possible and save me some grief, but I think it should be possible.

Posted on Jul 16, 2022 7:47 AM

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Bob Timmons

Community+ 2025

Level 10

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Posted on Jul 16, 2022 8:13 AM

It is unlikely that anyone on a user to user support site for Apple routers will have any advanced knowledge of a Huawei product, much less trying to configure it in Bridge Mode to act as a simple modem. A support site for Huawei would be a much better source for information.

But, let's assume that you have set up the Huawei correctly in Bridge Mode to act like a simple modem.

The next step would be to connect a Mac or PC directly to the Ethernet port on the Huawei using an Ethernet cable, temporarily turn off the WiFi on the computer and check to see if you can get a good Internet connection that way.

If you can, then we can proceed to the setup of the AirPort Extreme. But, if you cannot get a good Internet connection with the computer connected directly to the Huawei, you will have to start troubleshooting the Huawei product first.

In other words, we can't even think about setting up the AirPort Extreme until you know that the Huawei product is functioning correctly as a modem.

If it turns out that you find that the Huawei product will not work correctly in this type of setup, then you will need to reset the product so that it functions normally, like a router.

Then, if you want to use the AirPort Extreme, we will need to look at a special "router behind another router" type of setup for the AirPort.

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How connect an LTE Router to an Airport Extreme?

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