Hi from a newbie,

Apologies for the length of this post.

I wonder if someone could help me with identifying a suitable router or choice of routers or a list of TP-Link devices detailing functions and ports.

For internet access I connect to a Wireless Internet Sevice Provider (WISP) that requires me to login to a Captive Portal/Landing Login page with a Username and Password.

At present and because the connection is not very stable I use a bus powered Leguang N-120 high gain USB2 (802.11n) WiFi dongle with a 10 metre cable plugged directly into one of 3 PC’s. The connection often drops and I have to re-orientate the dongle to achieve the best or any reception and also keep swapping the dongle between PCs which is pain.

This arrangement only allows for a single PC to be connected to the internet at any one time and more crucially does not allow for the connection of Ethernet only devices to the internet that require a live/logged in connection.

I would like to network the PC’s via a router(?) that has WISP wan, WiFi LAN and Ethernet LAN. I also have a couple of 2TB USB3 backup hard drives that I would like to add to the mix.

The simplest solution would be to find a router that would accept my Leguang USB dongle on its wan and that also has 2 additional USB ports for the backup HDDs but I understand that this would be difficult because the router would have to supply the drivers for the dongle to operate.

I hope an alternative solution would be to find a router that has WISP mode (also called APClient Router mode??? on some TP-Link routers) that also has 2 USB ports configurable for connecting the backup HDDs and has detachable upgradeable aerials but I do not know enough about the terminology used to identify a suitable device.

Because the setup may not work well enough or at all, due to the poor Internet signal, I’ve been looking for a second-hand router but there are just so many I’ve got lost in the search.

Can someone suggest some router options? One with USB3 ports would be good but USB2 would also be OK.

The PCs all run Windows 10 and I realise I could use Mobile Hotspot mode from one PC to the other two PCs but that doesn’t help with the Ethernet only connection.

I successfully managed to bridge between the Leguang dongle Internet connection on one PC to its Ethernet port and then connect to the Internet via Ethernet on a second PC but this option was not reliable and always dropped the Internet connection to the first PC in favour of the second PC/device resulting in having to login again (from the second PC), which is no good for the Ethernet device because you can’t login with it.

I have a TP-Link TL-WR841ND v7 but this doesn’t appear to have WISP mode unlike some of the later models and they don’t have USB ports

Any help would be much appreciated.