Can I Use Two Broadband ISPs on one home XP network?

[Nick]

I would like to setup 2 broadband ISP's for my home network - one cable
company, one DSL. Mainly I'm looking for redundancy, but it would be nice
if I could use them simultaneously.

I have 3 computers connected via a Linksys broadband wireless-G router and
one broadband modem connected to the router today.

It is my understanding that the same computer cannot use both ISP's
simultaneously. Anyone have experience here?

The next best thing would be to match each specific computer to one of the
ISP's or the other. How would I go about doing that? If I bought a second
broadband router and plugged the second broadband modem into it and
connected the routers to each other, would that work? If that's acceptable
how would I configure each computer to access one or the other broadband
connection?

Are there any other network configurations that make more sense?

TIA. -N

 

[Chuck]

I would like to setup 2 broadband ISP's for my home network - one cable
company, one DSL. Mainly I'm looking for redundancy, but it would be nice
if I could use them simultaneously.

I have 3 computers connected via a Linksys broadband wireless-G router and
one broadband modem connected to the router today.

It is my understanding that the same computer cannot use both ISP's
simultaneously. Anyone have experience here?

The next best thing would be to match each specific computer to one of the
ISP's or the other. How would I go about doing that? If I bought a second
broadband router and plugged the second broadband modem into it and
connected the routers to each other, would that work? If that's acceptable
how would I configure each computer to access one or the other broadband
connection?

Are there any other network configurations that make more sense?

TIA. -N

Nick,

Using two broadband connections, simultaneously, could be done, but it would be
a lot of work, and wouldn't accomplish much. Some folks try and setup two
different connections, and think that they will be able to add the bandwidths
together, and get faster downloads.

You could possibly aggregate your bandwidth, but no single network transaction
will use both connections simultaneously. Any one download will use only one
connection.

For redundancy, you'll be better off getting a dual-WAN router. The router will
do load balancing, and failover if one connection goes down.

You'll find a few experts at DSL Reports Forums, where this discussion comes up
every week. They'll be able to tell you what make and model router to look for,
and which ones to avoid.
<http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sharing>
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sharing

 

[NoNeedToKnow]

I have 3 computers connected via a Linksys broadband wireless-G router and
one broadband modem connected to the router today.

It is my understanding that the same computer cannot use both ISP's
simultaneously. Anyone have experience here?

You can, if you wish. But a lot depends on what you want to do, really.

Also depends on how your PCs are configured. If you have fixed IPs and
define the DNS and gateway addresses yourself (rather than depend on the
DHCP facility) then you would be able to define which traffic goes on the
cable service, and which uses DSL (under MS-DOS there's the 'route' command
which would allow you to define certain IPs/IP ranges to be reached via one
of the gateways {routers}).

The next best thing would be to match each specific computer to one of the
ISP's or the other. ... If that's acceptable how would I configure each
computer to access one or the other broadband connection?

You'd first need to make sure that both items had suitable IP addresses on
your LAN. For example, you could have the DSL router as 10.1.0.100 and
the cable router as 10.2.0.100 and then use those IP addresses in the
different PCs to define which connection to use. That would be to
route *all* traffic via a particular connection.

There are also devices such as from Edimax which allow multiple WAN links
to be used. I have not tried one (yet) but you'd put that between your
LAN and your two external links, and define one connection to be main
and the other a standby (there may be other options). You may also
find linux solutions which could do traffic sharing (ie passing the
outgoing packets onto both the external links, and acting in a similar
manner to the Edimax as a single box between your LAN and the outside,
but again, I've not experimented with the Linux/Unix method and don't
need to try splitting the traffic).

I've happily used two DSL (in the UK, ADSL, as they have higher downstream
speeds than upstream) connections from a range of Win 98 and XP machines,
though I have not been attempting anything special with my iMac.

 

[Conor]

Nick,

Using two broadband connections, simultaneously, could be done,

Really? Do you have the faintest idea how ADSL works? Sure you can hook
up 2 modems but that subscriber line is tied to a specific ISP.

 

[NoNeedToKnow]

Really? Do you have the faintest idea how ADSL works? Sure you can hook
up 2 modems but that subscriber line is tied to a specific ISP.

Really? Yes. Look back at the OP.

Two broadband connections, one cable and one DSL. No problem at all.
Did Chuck move the goalposts? No.

Sure, two ADSL routers on one phone line won't be allowed to connect to
two different ISPs, but one ISP could be usable (but some suggest two
will interfere and make any connection impossible - not so IME).

 

[Conor]

Two broadband connections, one cable and one DSL. No problem at all.
Did Chuck move the goalposts? No.

Message was cancelled.

 

[Jon]

(e-mail address removed) declared for all the world to hear...

Really? Do you have the faintest idea how ADSL works? Sure you can hook
up 2 modems but that subscriber line is tied to a specific ISP.

The OP stated 1 cable and 1 ADSL. This could work with a dual-WAN
router.

 

[Dave J.]

In MsgID<[email protected]> on
Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:11:49 +0000, in uk.comp.home-networking,

You can, if you wish. But a lot depends on what you want to do, really.

Also depends on how your PCs are configured. If you have fixed IPs and
define the DNS and gateway addresses yourself (rather than depend on the
DHCP facility) then you would be able to define which traffic goes on the
cable service, and which uses DSL (under MS-DOS there's the 'route' command
which would allow you to define certain IPs/IP ranges to be reached via one
of the gateways {routers}).

In the past, I've seen connection sharing software which will actually use
multiple WAN feeds for one file transfer. The way it worked was much like
'Getright' and other download utils, by making several requests for
different parts of the file simultaneously via the two different WAN
linkups. Last time I looked for the particular package I'm thinking of[1]
it seemed to have disappeared from its original location, and I can't
remember if it would work via ethernet connections or if it was intended
to communicate directly with the modems. That said, there may be something
out there that will do the same job as it's not an especially complex
task.

Probably missing the point as I'm too lazy to dig back and read the OP.
Interesting anyhow though, strange that no one's got it together as it'd
be ideal for an office environment. The one I'm thinking of worked as a
proxy (IIRC) and was thereby invisible to all its clients and required no
other software to be installed.

[1] middleware? midmodem ? Can't remember the title.

Dave J.

 

[Roberto]

Possibly Midpoint Software.

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