[SOLVED] Adding Second phone line for DSL

[thomasj]

Hello, I live in an area where the best I can get is 4mb DSL. At best I see 3.1-3.2 MBs. I called my provider (Windstream) and asked if I could pay double and get another line. They answered yes. My question is if I hook another modem to the other phone line, then to another PC in the house, will both PCs be able to get 3mb at the same time, also If I hook both Ethernet cables into a dual Ethernet MB will that PC get 6mbs?

 

[Tumeden]

You can have two seperate computers each have their own line for the 3MBs each.

You can NOT benefit from the two seperate lines to one PC with two ethernet cards, the reason because when you connect to a website or do a download that data connects to one IP provided by your ISP, there would not be a way to utilize the bandwidth from two seperate IP's in the way you're trying to accomplish. In order to 'load balance' between two internet connections you usually need a piece of hardware which is rather expensive. Some ISP's provide them under certain circumstances so it may be worth asking. Some Modems allow multiple DSL lines.

 

[Solandri]

What you want is called channel bonding. You get two DSL lines, and a special DSL modem which combines them into a single connection. Your phone company uses similar equipment at their end which combines the two lines into a single connection. And you end up with a 6-8 Mbps connection over two DSL lines.

Talk to your phone company and ask about bonded DSL lines. It's fairly common for businesses to get them. You may have to request (and pay for) business DSL rather than residential. But it is something your phone company should already know how to do.

In the event your phone company cannot or refuses to do it for you, it is possible to set it up yourself. But it's ugly, finicky, and requires you also pay for an offsite server. In a nutshell, you replace your router with a server with two Ethernet cards (you'll need a third for your LAN connection). Each DSL line plugs into one Ethernet card. The server runs a VPN connection over the each DSL line to your offsite server. The offsite server then bonds these two VPN connections into a single connection to the Internet. If you'd rather just pay for this than have to set it up yourself, search for Mushroom Networks. They make hardware which does this. Though you'll still need to get an offsite server (I'm not sure if Mushroom provides this too, as I never did purchase their equipment).

Edit: Channel bonding is not load balancing as described above. You would see the same thing as if you had a single 6-8 Mbps DSL connection.