Question Two internet connections connected to one router

[BCR621]

I'm moving to a fairly rural area with less than optimal high-speed internet. I have the ability to order two separate DSL lines and need to know if I would be able to run both lines into one router. If so, could you recommend the best router to handle this? Thanks.

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Same ISP or two different ISPs?

 

[BCR621]

Same ISP or two different ISPs?

Same ISP, but one DSL will be residential service, the other business class. Not sure if that makes a difference.

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Same ISP, but one DSL will be residential service, the other business class. Not sure if that makes a difference.

It does. I would recommend that you first ask the ISP if it is possible for two DSL lines to be provisioned for your residential service. The DSL modem will aggregate the two lines together as one. That may provide you will the higher bandwidth you are seeking. But, you will not be able to use a single router for two separate WAN connections.

 

[BCR621]

It does. I would recommend that you first ask the ISP if it is possible for two DSL lines to be provisioned for your residential service. The DSL modem will aggregate the two lines together as one. That may provide you will the higher bandwidth you are seeking. But, you will not be able to use a single router for two separate WAN connections.

I tried that, ISP won't install two DSL lines to the same name/residence. Had to put one under my business name.

 

[jsmithepa]

I tried that, ISP won't install two DSL lines to the same name/residence. Had to put one under my business name.

So this is just an accounting issue, not a technical problem.

Anywhoo, ask ISP whether can use 2 lines as one seamless connection? see what they tell you.

I have seen routers with multi-WAN connections, whether it will combine the lines for u, or only as failsafe (one at a time) I don't know, needs further research.

If at the end, can't combine, maybe not all loss... Use one line dedicated to yourself and the 2nd to the family, UNLESS you require bandwidth higher than any 1 single line can provide.

 

[Ninjawithagun]

Supposedly, thare are certain routers that can utilize two separate WAN connections, but the timing has to be established between the two connections in order for the router to negotiate network traffic. Another issue is that both WAN connections must be able to share the same LAN, unless you plan to establish two separate LANs with unique subnets. In the end, too much trouble for the amount of effort involved. I would recommend that you recheck your local area for other internet services. There are ISPs in rural areas that use RF and not hardline copper. Also, cellular service is another option, especially now with most offering unlimited data (for a price). Last ditch effort when all else fails is satellite internet - ugh.

 

[bill001g]

All depends on your goal. There are many routers that can do dual wan. The way they seem to work the best is primary/backup....then again they sometime do not properly detect a down condition if it for example just loses 90% of the data.

The second easiest is manually load balance your users with some use 1 connection and others using the other. You also if you work at it hard enough run some application on one and other application on the other. Gets very tedious you must put in lists of IP.

Many of these routers have a option to try to load balance based on load. This tends to not work the example most people of this forum know about is say you play on a game system that has a login server and then has world servers you play on. If the login server uses 1 connection and the world server users the second the game company will think you are hacking since your traffic is coming from 2 different IP addresses. This can happen on many sites that use a different server for saying doing credit cards than orders.

It tend to be almost impossible to use both connections on a single machine. This is of course means that a single large file transfer can not use both since you have 2 ip addresses.

Having 2 ISP is of limited use. You can if you are skillful use both but withing the limitations of having 2 different IP addresses.