ADSL Router with two ADSL ports?

I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
event that my broadband service goes down. At the moment, in the event
of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
my pc's DNS properties.

Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
(Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")

Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....

Chris


Chris

"Chris" <g (E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
> that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
> event that my broadband service goes down. At the moment, in the event
> of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
> swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
> my pc's DNS properties.
>
> Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
> connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
> to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
> (Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")
>
> Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....
>
> Chris

I like the idea but make sure you are getting value for your money as both
phone lines will go along the same cable to the same exchange and maybe the
same internet equipment at the exchange, your common points of failure are
many! However if Virgin Media have cabled your area then some real
diversification is available as their broadband is (normally) distributed on
their TV network. Combine this with the BT/Other ADSL service and you will
have some extra degree of security, albeit at a price.

Peter

On Wed, 04 Jul 2007 09:06:37 +0100, Chris <g (E-Mail Removed)> mused:

>I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
>that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
>event that my broadband service goes down.

Unless you've specifically specified that you want these to be
failover lines then they probably run to the exchange in parallel to
the same cards etc... You need to either arrange with BT for them to
be routed seperately to seperate locations (not that they will always
do that, they just say they do) or if possible use a different
technology for the second line, cable broadband for instance.

How often does the line fail and how often do you need to use the
second line? You can get ethernet GPRS routers for about 3-400GBP.

>At the moment, in the event
>of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
>swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
>my pc's DNS properties.
>
Why not put the DNS properties in the router and have them
automatically served out to the PC's via DHCP?

>Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
>connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
>to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
>(Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")
>
>Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....
>
I haven't seen dual WAN port ADSL routers but ethernet routers with
WAN ports are reasonably common. You would need one of these and 2
ethernet ADSL modems. Linksys do an ADSL ethernet modem and Linksys,
Netgear, Vigor and others do the routers. If you had the 2nd ADSL line
converted to cable or some other method then you could interface this
to the ethernet port on the router easier.
--
Regards,
Stuart.

Chris wrote:
> I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
> that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
> event that my broadband service goes down. At the moment, in the event
> of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
> swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
> my pc's DNS properties.
>
> Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
> connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
> to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
> (Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")
>
> Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....
>
> Chris

Relatively cheap and simple solutions - depends on how much you want to
spend.

Draytek Vigor 2910 with two Vigor 100 ADSL modems should do the job but
note.

http://draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2910.html
http://draytek.co.uk/products/vigor100.html

Draytek can be configured to auto fail over on failure of one WAN link
(or you can have them both up simultaneously.

If two ADSL lines probably going into one exchange therefore single
point of failure - another poster has suggested cable for enhanced
redundancy (use cable supplied modem instead of one of the Vigor 100)

Vigor 100 does NOT work with BE Internet despite being advertised as ADSL 2+

If you use both WAN connections simultaneously they are not bonded.

Regards

A

On Wed, 04 Jul 2007 12:59:07 +0100, Alan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Vigor 100 does NOT work with BE Internet despite being advertised as ADSL 2+

I'm no great defender of Draytek but the reason it doesn't work is
because Be have a non-standard setup which I think you'll find is
explained on the Draytek UK (Seg) site.

Loads of modems don't work with Be in ADSL2+ mode - for example I have
a Zyxel which I KNOW does ADSL2+ as I used it in Denmark. It won't
sync at ADSL2+ speeds on Be unless I poke a couple of (out of spec)
values into a register and then it will.

Zyxel - quite rightly IMHO - say they have no intention of releasing
firmware that breaks the ITU agreed specs. In reality this means they
haven't had enough complaints to implement an "extension" ;-)

Mr Adams wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Jul 2007 12:59:07 +0100, Alan <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Vigor 100 does NOT work with BE Internet despite being advertised as ADSL 2+
>
> I'm no great defender of Draytek but the reason it doesn't work is
> because Be have a non-standard setup which I think you'll find is
> explained on the Draytek UK (Seg) site.

H'm I would be interested to see that - do you have a link?

Regards

A

on 04/07/2007, Chris supposed :
> I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
> that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
> event that my broadband service goes down. At the moment, in the event
> of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
> swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
> my pc's DNS properties.
>
> Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
> connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
> to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
> (Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")
>
> Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....
>
> Chris

The simplest way to achieve what you're after would be to just plug
your 2nd router into your existing network, having given it a static
address compatible with your existing set-up & having turned off DHCP.

When you want to use the 2nd connection, change the PC's gateway from
your original router's IP address to that of the 2nd router.

To deal with the changes needed in the TCP/IP settings of the PC, use a
little programme called NetSetMan to swap between the two.

Jono wrote:

>The simplest way to achieve what you're after would be to just plug
>your 2nd router into your existing network, having given it a static
>address compatible with your existing set-up & having turned off DHCP.
>
>When you want to use the 2nd connection, change the PC's gateway from
>your original router's IP address to that of the 2nd router.
>
>To deal with the changes needed in the TCP/IP settings of the PC, use a
>little programme called NetSetMan to swap between the two.
>

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions.

The mix of an ADSL and a cable broadband solution using a Vigor
dual-WAN port router appears the best diverse solution, however there
is no cable service available at work.

As it happens, my ezeeDSL broadband failed for a while this afternoon,
and as a manual "fix", I established a dial-up connection from another
pc on the network, enabled ICS on that pc, enabled uPNP on the router,
and the other pcs on the network (without any reconfiguration) used
that dial-up connection whilst the broadband was down. Hardly the
automatic solution I was hoping for, and I'm not quite sure how it
worked, but it got me off the hook today.

Thanks again.

--
Chris

Alan wrote:
>Chris wrote:
>> I'm having a second broadband service installed on another line so
>> that my business can continue to validate/accept credit cards in the
>> event that my broadband service goes down. At the moment, in the event
>> of a problem with the broadband, it would be necessary to physically
>> swap over LAN connections from one router to the other and reconfigure
>> my pc's DNS properties.
>>
>> Is there such a thing as a router which can maintain two ADSL
>> connections with different ISPs, and use either of them automatically
>> to provide internet gateway access from other computers on my LAN?
>> (Rather like a sort of "alternate routing")
>>
>> Or is there a simpler/better way of achieving the same thing?....
>>
>> Chris
>
>Relatively cheap and simple solutions - depends on how much you want to
>spend.
>
>Draytek Vigor 2910 with two Vigor 100 ADSL modems should do the job but
>note.
>
>http://draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2910.html
>http://draytek.co.uk/products/vigor100.html
>
>Draytek can be configured to auto fail over on failure of one WAN link
>(or you can have them both up simultaneously.
>
>If two ADSL lines probably going into one exchange therefore single
>point of failure - another poster has suggested cable for enhanced
>redundancy (use cable supplied modem instead of one of the Vigor 100)
>

Good advice, Alan. Thanks.

In the end, I didn't get a second ADSL - and I can't get cable, so:

As of today (four months later :-)), I now have the original ADSL
service through a Vigor 100 into the 2910, and for the "alternate"
broadband, a 3G USB modem straight into the USB port of the 2910.

If I unplug the ADSL to simulate a fault, after a couple of minutes,
the 3G modem becomes connected, and we're automatically back on line
without any changes to any of the client pcs.

Cheers, Chris