Best way to setup a vacation network

Question

I am going on vacation and will be bringing the following with me:

• Laptop
• Wireless router running DD-WRT
• Cell phone that can share network either by WiFi hotspot or USB tether
• Several other wireless / wired networked devices

Ideally, I would like a network that:

1. Can perform as a private network when my phone is out of the picture
2. Share internet connection between all devices when my phone is connected and configured to do so

My first pass at the problem was to setup my phone as a hotspot and have the router connect to it in Bridged Repeater mode. This works great when the phone is connected, but it uses DHCP on the phone, so things go sour when the phone is not present.

My second thought was to tether my phone to my laptop, connect the WAN side of the router to the laptop via ethernet, and then use ICS to share the connection. With this setup, though, the laptop is not involved in the LAN. It's also a bit ugly.

Is there some elegant way to accomplish what I want with the equipment that I have available to me?

Answer 1

Tether the phone to your laptop, setup ICS on the laptop to share it with the other devices (and to provide DHCP), and use the LAN side of the router (only) as a basic switch and WiFi AP (turn off the DHCP server on the router).