When you live in a rural area, your internet connection is your lifeline. Whether you’re working from home, running a small business, or just trying to stay connected, a single ISP outage can leave you completely offline. The solution? A multi-WAN failover system that automatically switches between internet connections when one goes down.

I’ve been running a multi-WAN setup at my rural Oklahoma property for over a year now, and it’s saved me from dozens of outages that would have otherwise killed my workday. Here’s how to build your own.

What Is Multi-WAN Failover?

Multi-WAN failover means having two or more internet connections (WANs) plugged into a single router that monitors each connection’s health. When your primary connection drops, the router automatically switches traffic to your backup — usually in under 30 seconds. When the primary comes back, it switches back. All of this happens without you lifting a finger.

Choosing Your Internet Sources

The key to a good failover setup is diversity. You want connections that fail independently — if both your lines run through the same utility pole, they’ll both go down in the same storm. Here are the most common rural WAN options:

• Fixed Wireless / WISP — Many rural areas have local wireless ISPs. Good speeds (25-100 Mbps), but susceptible to weather and line-of-sight issues.
• Starlink — Satellite internet that actually works. 50-200 Mbps with 20-40ms latency. Great as either primary or backup.
• Cellular (4G LTE / 5G) — A dedicated cellular modem or hotspot makes an excellent backup. T-Mobile Home Internet is unlimited and affordable in many rural areas.
• DSL — If you’re close enough to a CO (central office), DSL is slow but incredibly reliable. Makes a great “it just works” backup.
• HughesNet / Viasat — Legacy satellite. High latency (600ms+) makes it painful for video calls, but it’ll keep email and basic browsing alive in a pinch.

My personal setup uses a fixed wireless WISP as primary and Starlink as backup. They fail completely independently — different towers, different infrastructure, different weather vulnerabilities.

The Router: Your Failover Brain

Not every router supports multi-WAN. Here are the best options for rural setups, from simple to advanced:

Option 1: Mikrotik (Best Value)

Mikrotik routers like the hEX S (RB760iGS) or RB5009 support multi-WAN out of the box. They’re affordable ($70-$200), incredibly powerful, and used by ISPs worldwide. The learning curve is steep — RouterOS isn’t as friendly as consumer gear — but the capability per dollar is unbeatable.

For failover, Mikrotik uses “netwatch” to ping a target (like 8.8.8.8) through each WAN. When pings fail, it adjusts routing automatically. You can set up active/standby or even load balancing across both connections simultaneously.

Option 2: pfSense / OPNsense (Most Flexible)

If you have an old PC or a small mini-PC lying around, you can turn it into a powerhouse router with pfSense or OPNsense (both free, open-source). Multi-WAN failover is built into the gateway groups feature. You get a full web UI, VPN support, traffic shaping, and more.

A small fanless mini-PC with two Ethernet ports makes the perfect pfSense box. Budget around $150-250 for hardware that’ll last years.

Option 3: Ubiquiti EdgeRouter / UniFi (Easy Mode)

The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X ($60) supports dual-WAN failover with a clean web interface. If you’re already in the UniFi ecosystem, the UniFi Dream Machine Pro handles it natively. Not as configurable as Mikrotik or pfSense, but much easier to set up.

Basic Failover Configuration

Regardless of which router you choose, the core failover logic is the same:

1. Connect both WANs to your router (two separate Ethernet ports, or one Ethernet + one USB cellular modem)
2. Set up health checks — ping a reliable external target (1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8, or your ISP’s gateway) through each WAN every 5-10 seconds
3. Define failover rules — if 3-5 consecutive pings fail on the primary, switch all traffic to the backup
4. Set failback rules — when the primary recovers (5+ consecutive successful pings), switch back
5. Test it — unplug your primary WAN and verify everything switches over cleanly

Pro Tips From My Setup

• Use different ping targets per WAN. If you ping the same IP through both connections and that IP goes down, both WANs will look “dead” and your router might flap.
• Don’t forget DNS. Set your router to use public DNS (1.1.1.1, 8.8.8.8) instead of your ISP’s DNS servers. ISP DNS won’t resolve when you’ve failed over to a different provider.
• Monitor your connections. Set up simple logging or alerts so you know when failovers happen. I use a small monitoring script that sends me a text message whenever the active WAN changes.
• Consider your power. A failover router means nothing if your networking gear dies in a power outage. Put your router, modem, and any switches on a UPS like the CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD. A basic UPS with 30 minutes of runtime costs about $50-80 and keeps you online during brief outages.
• Test monthly. Unplug your primary once a month to make sure failover still works. Configurations drift, firmware updates can reset settings, and it’s better to find problems during a test than during a real outage.

What About Starlink as Primary?

Starlink works great as either primary or backup. If you’re using it as primary, keep in mind that Starlink has brief dropouts (1-3 seconds) several times per day as satellites hand off. These are too short to trigger failover but can disrupt video calls and VPN tunnels. A cellular backup with fast failover (sub-5-second detection) can cover these gaps nicely.

If Starlink is your backup, set a higher failover threshold (maybe 10 failed pings over 30 seconds) so you’re not constantly switching to satellite for every brief WISP hiccup.

Cost Breakdown

Here’s what a basic dual-WAN failover setup costs:

• Router: $60-250 (EdgeRouter X on the low end, pfSense mini-PC on the high end)
• Primary ISP: $50-120/month (varies wildly by area)
• Backup ISP: $30-120/month (T-Mobile Home Internet at $50/mo is hard to beat)
• UPS: $50-80 (essential, not optional)
• Total one-time: ~$150-350
• Total monthly: Your two ISP bills combined

Is it worth paying for two internet connections? If you work from home, absolutely. One lost workday costs more than a year of backup internet. If you’re running a business, it’s a no-brainer. Even for personal use, the peace of mind of knowing a storm can’t knock you offline is worth a lot when your nearest neighbor is a mile away.

Bottom Line

A multi-WAN failover system is one of the best investments you can make for rural connectivity. The hardware is affordable, the setup is straightforward once you pick your router, and the result is an internet connection that’s genuinely reliable — even when individual providers aren’t. Start with two diverse connections, a capable router, and a UPS, and you’ll wonder how you ever survived with a single connection.