--- title: This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it... description: A homelab enthusiast discovered that an idle secondary Android phone with an unused 5G data plan could serve as a third WAN port on a TP-Link ER605 router via... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it actually works | daily.dev og:description: A homelab enthusiast discovered that an idle secondary Android phone with an unused 5G data plan could serve as a third WAN port on a TP-Link ER605 router via... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/UL7HZtM05.png og:image:alt: This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it actually works og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it actually works **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A homelab enthusiast discovered that an idle secondary Android phone with an unused 5G data plan could serve as a third WAN port on a TP-Link ER605 router via USB-C-to-Ethernet tethering. By configuring the phone as a last-resort backup WAN (WAN3), the setup successfully failed over when both primary ISPs were manually disconnected, delivering 105 Mbps down and 27ms ping. Key caveats: CGNAT on the cellular line blocks direct port forwarding (mitigated by a Pangolin VPS tunnel), and the backup ISP and phone plan share the same carrier, leaving a carrier-wide outage as the one uncovered failure scenario. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I ditched my travel router for a spare Android phone, and it actually worked](https://daily.dev/posts/i-ditched-my-travel-router-for-a-spare-android-phone-and-it-actually-worked-isxaiobil) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [3 simple ways I turned my old Android phone into a backup internet lifeline](https://daily.dev/posts/3-simple-ways-i-turned-my-old-android-phone-into-a-backup-internet-lifeline-0clrestld) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Self-Hosting Behind CGNAT](https://daily.dev/posts/self-hosting-behind-cgnat-lrdls1bcr) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [My two ISPs don't know about each other, and my router makes that fine](https://daily.dev/posts/my-two-isps-don-t-know-about-each-other-and-my-router-makes-that-fine-ddxwunokb) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Adding a backup Internet WAN on my OPNsense Router](https://daily.dev/posts/adding-a-backup-internet-wan-on-my-opnsense-router-a7gbniplm) · Jeff Geerling · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#networking](https://daily.dev/tags/networking), [#self-hosting](https://daily.dev/tags/self-hosting), [#homelab](https://daily.dev/tags/homelab) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it actually works","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05"},"datePublished":"2026-08-03T20:00:23.662Z","dateModified":"2026-08-03T20:03:14.434Z","description":"A homelab enthusiast discovered that an idle secondary Android phone with an unused 5G data plan could serve as a third WAN port on a TP-Link ER605 router via...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a906402433beeea24428f342dfdd9845?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/a906402433beeea24428f342dfdd9845?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"XDA Developers","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"XDA Developers","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--kCg6yyAP--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774964407/logos/xda-developers?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/this-old-galaxy-phone-became-my-third-wan-port-and-it-actually-works-ul7hztm05","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"networking,self-hosting,homelab","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"XDA Developers","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"This old Galaxy phone became my third WAN port, and it actually works"}]} ```