can wifi and cellular connection both be active at same time?

Question

Level 1

8 points

can wifi and cellular connection both be active at same time?

I am using iPads as Point of Sale (POS) system in cafe. Network consists of cable modem/router, switch, 3 ethernet connected printers, Airport Express connected to switch and used as access point for two iPads. One iPad has cellular capability, which I got hoping to have it available as a backup connection for processing credit cards if cable service is disrupted.

My question is whether or not I will have local LAN connectivity via wifi (to send orders and receipts to printers via ethernet connection) if I am using the cellular connection for Internet access (solely to process credit card transactions). The question stands for two possible scenarios; connecting just the one iPad to the Internet and processing all transactions with it, or using personal hotspot to provide connectivity to both iPads.

Any light shed on my situation will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim Toner

Airport Express-OTHER, iOS 6.1.4

Posted on Aug 19, 2013 1:59 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 20, 2013 6:14 AM in response to silvianjim

An iPad will use the internet connection it thinks is fastest. If you have both WiFi and cellular turned on then (unless your providers have their signals marked unusually) it will use the WiFi for internet if it's available, and if the WiFi connection disappears it will switch to using your cellular connection until it returns.

There is no way to tell it to use the cellular connection for internet traffic if the WiFi connection is available and marked as being faster.

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Answer 2

silvianjim Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 20, 2013 7:24 AM in response to Simon Slavin

Thanks Simon.

I am more concerned about what will happen if the the Internet service from the cable company is disrupted, but I still have my wifi connection to my LAN. I want the Internet connection to switch over to the cellular connection, but I want the iPad to still connect to the printers on my LAN via the wifi connection.

Is the iPad smart enough to figure out that these devices are still available even though the Internet connection has switched to cellular. I know it has to communicate on both connections for Personal Hotspot to work, but I don't know if other wired devices on the LAN will be available.

The answer may also be dependent on which POS app is installed on the iPads.

Any feedback is appreciated.

Jim

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Answer 3

Aug 20, 2013 8:55 AM in response to silvianjim

I ignore personal hotspot, since that depends on everything else working correctly.

The 'connection to the internet' is set not just by the actual connection working (e.g. that WiFi finds a genuine WiFi base station) but by ability to reach servers. So if the iPad connects to your WiFi base station, but the base station itself isn't connected to the 'real' internet, the iPad will still know that this isn't a real connection, and it will still use its cellular abiliities if it needs a real internet connection.

Whether the iPad will use your WiFi to reach your printers I don't know. It depends on the configuration of your wired network (WiFi base station, printers, ethernet hub, etc..). Some hubs/routers will continue to provide intranet when internet isn't available. Some cheap ones will panic when the internet isn't available and won't provide intranet routing until they can reach the internet again.

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Answer 4

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Aug 20, 2013 10:39 AM in response to silvianjim

I have not verified this, but I have read that the ios 6 ipad uses either the cell network or the wifi network, but not both at the same time.

You should be able to test this.

I'm not enough of a network tech to know if you could get this to work, but there are mifi devices that do wifi to cellular.

Here is one example:

FreedomPop provides 500meg of free 4g cellular data per month! You do need to buy a wireless device at $39. There are ways of getting bonus megs. One gig of addition data costs $10 per month. I used about 10megs per hour of internet surfing.

When signing up, you need to be careful with your selections. On some screens, the free option is a small link below the large button. FreedomPop employs a Pavlovian Dog < Operant conditioning > thing of getting you used to clicking on the large button then they change the large button to a paid add-on.

Once you setup your account, you need to go to your account options screen to turn off automatic paid data download once you exceed your quota.

The performance seems about like my DSL connection.

http://www.freedompop.com/offers.htm?experience=organic.default

http://www.freedompop.com/coverage

Get it before they go broke.

Robert

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