Thread: Alternative Internet Connections

Say, I have 3 computers and a ADSL connection attached to a 8-port hub, and internet works fine in all the machines. Now, I want to add another alternative ADSL line (from some other provider) as a backup internet connection. What and how should I configure to achieve it?

What exactly I want is, if one ADSL connection fails the other should be available and none of the connected computers should feel any disturbance.

I am a software guy and don't have much knowledge of configuring routers and network hardware. Any help would be highly appreciated.

I wonder if bridging can help. for this experiment you gonna need three network cards, two for internet connection and one for local network.
Never tested or tried it(never needed), only read about it.
This should get you started :-
webopedia.com/TERM/W/Windows_XP_Network_Bridge.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridging_(networking)

TRY DualWAN Port routers.DI-LB604 Load Balancing Router

D-Link LOAD BALANCING ROUTER WITH 2 WAN PORTS AND 4- LAN PORT SWITCH

Excellent Find!

This has been discussed in this forum earlier also.
Many users wanted to ADD two isp's with different speeds for download, and felt not possible.

I could connect a broadband connection and good old Sancharnet Internet connection to single system laptop and tested . worked fine.
rj45 port for Broadband andRrj11 port for dialup 56Kmodem
The ISP 's should be different.

I heard, on another forum, that compatible routers running DD-WRT have the option of converting one of the LAN ports to a second WAN port.

No personal experience, but the source is knowledgable.

Originally Posted by essbebe

This has been discussed in this forum earlier also.
Many users wanted to ADD two isp's with different speeds for download, and felt not possible.

I could connect a broadband connection and good old Sancharnet Internet connection to single system laptop and tested . worked fine.
rj45 port for Broadband andRrj11 port for dialup 56Kmodem
The ISP 's should be different.

Most of the earlier discussions were about how to use for example two 1mbps connections simultaneously to get a 2mbps speed for downloading one single file and it is just not possible using any current technology we have. You can still use two or more connections but one query will not use two connections for outgoing or income communication. You can use one connection for uplinking and the second for down link like the use the dial up connection for uplink and satellite for down link but having used one of those things for a few days myself I would not recommend it to anyone who has a choice.

Anyone asking for such a solution wont really spend the money on the hardware required for a load balancing setup because if budget was not a restraining factor then such a query would not exist as you always have an option to get a higher bandwidth connection given the choices we now have in India.

The only solution for this is to use two machines and connect them both by creating a local network and then use one connection on each of them and download the same file. The connection between the two machines being pretty fast will keep them from downloading the same packets twice or say reduce this by a considerable margin and you can achieve about 75-80% of the total bandwidth to download one single file. I am sure there must be a way to do this on the same machine as well but I am not that clever and would love to hear from those who are


@kajoo

You would also need static IP addresses for your ADSL connections because whatever applications you are going to access on a third party server will log you out if there is a change in the IP address. Having static IP address will only help if you can white list both the IP address on the server you access. If it is unsecured stuff then you might not need static IP. Depends what you do with your connection. If you use your connection for VOIP then its a different game all together. Would be interesting to know what you are trying to achieve.

Thank you all! Its been very responsive so far.

Multi-port WAN router sounds good to me, but I've a feeling that is going to cost me a lot... is it? If yes, how much?

Having a dedicated PC (to act like a connection sharing server) also sounds good, what how would I configure it?

A multi-WAN-port (ethernet) router might come fro free if your check out DD-WRT, and have a modem for each ADLS line. A modem/router with twin ADSL connection is different hardware altogether.

But, after reading admin's advice, do you still think it is worth it?

Originally Posted by essbebe

TRY DualWAN Port routers.DI-LB604 Load Balancing Router

D-Link LOAD BALANCING ROUTER WITH 2 WAN PORTS AND 4- LAN PORT SWITCH

What is the approx price of this ?

Last time, when I found one it was about Rs.9000.

Looks like it is discontinued. See here.

I have a feeling that these boxes may have gone out of fashion. It's much easier, and possibly cheaper, to upgrade a 1Mb link to a 2Mb than to try to combine it with another one.

I did look at this about three years ago, and my bad memory for numbers says it was eight or ten thousand. I could be way off.

If u have some old machine wich aint being used, try ur hands on linux then.
It works perfectly fine on Cento-OS(the one m usin).
And YES! it adds up the bandwidth.....1 plus 1 equal to 2 mbps, thats wat it does.

And YES! it adds up the bandwidth.....1 plus 1 equal to 2 mbps, thats wat it does.

If you have several machines on the LAN, yes, the total bandwidth available to them would be "1+1=2".

For a single machine, doing a single download of a single file: 1or1=1. Because the server at the other end can't share your download between two addresses.

Perhaps answer to ur though can be found in the workin of Download Accelerator Pro (famously known as DAP) where the same file can be downloaded from 10 different sites, simultaneously, each site delivering only a part of the requested file.

If your systems are Wifi capable you can also try Olive router available for around 3.5 K with option for one ADSL and one 3G (EVDO/HSDPA) connection
http://www.olivetelecom.in/olive-nexus-vr9-wireless-router/
It has the ability to add both bandwidth as well as act as fail-safe in case of failure of one of them.

Once upon a time, as you know, there was ISDN, and it came in two channels. As a result, there was a technology available to integrate both channels. Since then, and the move to DSL technology I thought that was either defunct, or just not economically feasible compares with increasing one's bandwidth on the single connection.

I have to admit, after posting (and my post was based not only on my old knowledge, but also on everything I could find on the net when prompted to google, by this thread, a few days ago) i thought: "what about torrents? What about a situation where a person is downloading simultaneously from more than one source?". I don't use torrents; I don't know, even, if that is what happens, but if so, then it could certainly be a case in which my assertion of 1or1=1 would not be true.

Originally Posted by Broadband_ISP_South_Delhi

Perhaps answer to ur though can be found in the workin of Download Accelerator Pro (famously known as DAP) where the same file can be downloaded from 10 different sites, simultaneously, each site delivering only a part of the requested file.

Interesting. I did not find much on how it manages to do what it does, except in the case of being able to find multiple mirrors. I would guess that this is possible in some instances and not in others; obviously, not everything is mirrored. If it can find multiple copies, and negotiate with the servers to send different parts of a file, then that's pretty smart.

I only have one broadband connection. I also do not have a DD-WRT-compatible router, or a spare machine to use. Actually, never mind old machines, my single machine is running Linux, and the DAP software is Windows.

If I did have all that stuff, I'd be giving it a try. Thanks for the information