Linking Two Broadband Connections

I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
both.

Anyone else seen or done this before?

--
"Now that there is one damn fine coat you're wearing."

www.stri.tk

On 10 Aug 2005 23:09 GMT, Stri <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>there are routers would can combine two different adsl connections
>together making use of bandwidth for both.

Not routers, but there's (a) the firebrick (http://www.firebrick.co.uk).
and (b) (from a post 2 years ago - but I saw no review of how well it
worked) :-

----------------------------------------------------
From: "Clueless" <(E-Mail Removed)>
Newsgroups: uk.telecom.broadband
Subject: Re: Bonded uplink on ADSL via Linux
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 09:01:03 +0100
Message-ID: <(E-Mail Removed)>
....
Extremely interesting, thanks for that, found this
http://www.edimax.com.tw/html/englis...ts/BR-6541.htm which is 4 WAN
ports load balanced with dynamic switchover !
Have placed an order, might write something up.

S. Althaf
----------------------------------------------------

Of course, depending on what you want to do, you can use the Windows
'route' command to have some sites from one router and other sites
from a second (or third, or fourth if you run several). Peter M.


--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

On Wednesday, in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>
(E-Mail Removed)sknice "Stri" wrote:

> I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
> two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
> both.
>
> Anyone else seen or done this before?

It sounds a similar problem to what can be done with ISDN, or even two
dial-up modems.

Two modems with an ethernet connection would make it the basic
networking problem of having two connections to the rest of the
Internet. Two phonelines, and ADSL with two ISPs, and it's almost
straight out of the textbooks.

The router might need to be rather more specialised, and you likely need
two-to-many NAT rather than the usual one-to-many system.

The minimal case is one computer with two ethernet ports. IP addresses
are for the connections, not the computers.

I've not seen it myself, but it sounds very possible.

--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.

"I am Number Two," said Penfold. "You are Number Six."

"Stri" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

> I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
> two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
> both.
>
> Anyone else seen or done this before?

http://www.link-connect.com/smart-connect.html

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 02:46:59 +0100, poster <us-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On 10 Aug 2005 23:09 GMT, Stri <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>there are routers would can combine two different adsl connections
>>together making use of bandwidth for both.
>
>Not routers, but there's (a) the firebrick (http://www.firebrick.co.uk).
>and (b) (from a post 2 years ago - but I saw no review of how well it
>worked) :-

I use a FireBrick Plus here with two ADSL lines to the same ISP (http://www.aaisp.net.uk/). I'm
using the Firebrick to bond the uplink of both ADSL lines to achieve an uplink speed of 512Kbps
rather than the normal 256Kbs of a single line.

The downlink is setup in failover mode (which requires the ISP to do something their end), so that
if one of the lines fails (as it does from time to time), traffic is automatically routed down the
other line. This works well, and I don't normally notice when a line fails apart from the reduction
in speed of course.

It is possible to also bond the downlink for increased speed and faster failover, but that requires
another brick at the ISPs end. Which depending on your budget may or may not be an option, and of
course requires your ISP to host it (A&A don't charge for this AFAIK).

There is a newer model out than the one I'm using, the Firebrick 105. See the site mentioned in the
previous post above for details.

Results from adslguides speedtest below (I'm only bonding the Upstream):

Direction Actual Speed True Speed (estimated)

Downstream 901 Kbps (112.6 KB/sec) 973 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 403 Kbps (50.4 KB/sec) 435 Kbps (inc. overheads)

Regards,
Martin


martin (at) mgw (.) org (.) uk

"Stri" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
> two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
> both.
>
> Anyone else seen or done this before?

There is a solution for bonding 2 or more ADSL enabled lines using Linux:

http://www.freestuffjunction.co.uk/bondedcd.shtml

I know there a number of people using this with Nildram:

http://www.nildram.net/pdf/bondedbroadband.pdf

On 11 Aug 2005 08:53, "Rupert" wrote:

>http://www.link-connect.com/smart-connect.html

Oh yes... I'll have two please (at 2500 I doubt many would consider this
for home use :-) Even the Cisco product they supply is 1800 quid...

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

"Stri" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
> two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
> both.
>
> Anyone else seen or done this before?
>
> --
> "Now that there is one damn fine coat you're wearing."
>
> www.stri.tk

you need a router with dual wan like this one
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...=77086&_LOC=UK

http://makeashorterlink.com/?U4E14299B

there are a number around now

On 11 Aug 2005 17:30 GMT, "anex13" wrote:

>you need a router with dual wan like this one
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?U4E14299B
>there are a number around now

Thanks for that - will have to get one later, and 'play' :-) Peter M.

--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/5jpa4> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!!

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 23:09:30 GMT, Stri
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I heard this gent at work say that there are routers would can combine
>two different adsl connections together making use of bandwidth for
>both.
>
>Anyone else seen or done this before?

No doubt there are various solutions that will ustilise two different
lines to load balance the connections, but that will not give you a
true bonded connection, even if they are labelled as a bonded
solution.

You need to use an ISP that wil support Multilink PPP on its ADSL
platform and a suitable router at your own end. Multilink PPP is the
same protocol that combines two single 64Kbps ISDN channels to create
a 128Kbps link.

With a Multilink PPP bonded connection you are presented with a single
route irresepective of how many channels you bond together.

It's not unusual to bond two channels, it's less common to bond 3 and
4 channels. We have one customer who's bonding 8 ADSL channels!

In terms of a suitable router, you could use a Cisco 1841 with 2 x
WIC-1ADSL cards for 2 channels, or a Cisco 2811 with 3 or 4 WIC-1ADSL
cards for 3 or 4 channels. I don't know what the customer who's
bonding 8 channels is using, but it will cost a few quid, that's for
sure!

In theory you could install 2 x USB ADSL modems into a Windows machine
and just tell dial up networking to use them both for the same
connection, just like you would do with an ISDN connection. The ISP
must be aware that that's what you want to do, and be prepared to
support it, so they can configure RADIUS at their end (otherwise you'd
just end up with 2 separate ADSL connections into the same Windows
PC!) I've heard of someone doing this as a proof of concept, but the
Windows PC wasn't too happy about the additional processing load
placed on it.

We actually provide a managed bonded solution, inclusive of managed
Cisco hardware, starting at around £2,400 per year for 2 channels at
2Mbps per channel with 20:1 contention and no caps. Nobody said it
was cheap, but when you consider the hardware alone costs about £1,000
then it ain't bad.

Jake