dual internet connections?

Question

I have two internet services both dsl connections from different providers. One is a connected to a switch the wired connections, and the other is connected to a wireless router for the laptops. My desktop has a wired connection and a wireless adapter and runs XP pro. Is there easy or good way to manage the use of both connections at the same time? Is there a way to connect them within widows to get better performance or load balancing? Or maybe there is a way to specify what traffic goes over each connection (ex: internet browsing goes over wireless while P2P or network games go over the wired)?

Answer 1

The other two people are describing situations that use the same vendor's equipment at the service provider end and with the exception of a few vendors are on the same device. And at your end must be able to run some version of Link Aggregation Group (LAG), or Teaming, or Multilink trunk. I have worked with many vendors' equipment and some vendors will work with one vendor at the service provider end and another vendor at the client end, but none of them will work with different vendors at the service provider end or at the client end. The problem is that they do not all follow the standards exactly, but interpret them to allow apparently random load balancing between the links. But they do use an algorithm to determine the method of load balancing, and unless they are identically the same, then it will not work.

To provide LAG there must be communication between the devices that look after the two links. Two different service providers using different vendor's equipment simply are not able to do that, and even if they used the same vendor's equipment they would not allow another provider to control part of their network.

You will note that normally the connections must reside on the same device at both ends. Unless you are using very high end routers. The next thing is that the computer would have to set up LAG, or SMLT, to the two routers and you would have to get the two routers to set up LAG to the two service providers.

Normally computers will always use the highest speed connection, which means that it will use the wired 100 Mbps connection rather than the 54 Mbps wireless connection, if you are using G type routers.

So essentially as long as the wired connection is there, the computer will use the wired connection, if the wired fails then the wireless will take over.

So basically you have to have a lot of things in your favour to make it work.

Answer 2

You might want to check out what is called a floppy router. This program allows you to use an older computer, no hard drive, 1 floppy drive and up to 3 network cards. wow 3 cards??? yes 1 card is lan side and 2 is wan side so you could connect 2 internet connections and put them together into the 1 lan connection.

Answer 3

As others have said, you can set up a home network. Linuxiac raises some very valid points that you should be aware of. Many youngsters will want to have their own connection so they can peruse porn sites, or download illicit material (both pirated software/music and 'naughty' pictures). Don't forget though, that young boys can be 'sucked in' by people whose intentions are not honorable. Make sure you know who your children are talking to, and warn them about not giving out personal information about themselves, where they live, what school they attend, etc.

Answer 4

Hello Mate,



Any Cisco router with 2 Adsl WIC cards can bundle / load balance your two connections for you. All you have to do is set up a mult-link hybrid interface. I do it on leased lines all the time.



If you really feel fancy you can set up your routing protocol of choice to do equal or unequal cost load balancing.



Hope this helps...