Solved Getting second line from ISP. Looking at Bridges and Load Balancing

[computergeekguy]

Hi guys. I live on Mars and therefore I am limited to one ISP who can deal with my VPN needs as VPNs are "sometimes" required for my line of work.

Also note that I have never dealt with bridges or load balancing so if I make an assumption that is incorrect please let me know.

I also have a concern but I will add those in at the end.

The internet is provided by Centurylink. It is DLS and each line is 1.5 mbps up and 0.2 mbps down. Now I have been looking at installing a second Ethernet card and bridging the connections in control panel for the two modems, but the other people in my household are not thrilled about me making my work computer the only one with dual speed. They want better speed as well so now im looking at a piece of hardware that can load balance. I would like to stop renting two modems and use my own equipment.

Is there a single piece of hardware out there that can take multiple DSL lines (possibly more than 2) and provide wireless and Ethernet for everyone? Otherwise I am looking at purchasing a modem for each line followed by a load balancing router with wifi.

I acknowledge that I will likely be dishing out triple digit $$$ so if you guys could set me up with the most economical solution that would be great.

A problem I fear I will run into.

Some, not all of my work requires VPN. Those who require an encrypted stream will likely be slowed down to the 1.5 or is there a way for the load balancing to split the packets over both lines?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[z3r010]

Before Fibre was run here I had a two line bonded DSL setup, my ISP sorted it all out so I don't know the technicalities of it, but I've just googled "bonding dsl lines" and that came up with quite a bit on the subject.

I did notice one post where they mentioned using a linux distro IPCOP to do the bonding, so that may be something worth looking at.

 

[computergeekguy]

Alright, after spending the day on Google, this is what I found.

There are two separate systems for a multi line setup. One is called Load Balancing and one is called Bonded or Link Bonding.

Load Balancing: The pros to this system is that the ISP can do this as it requires nothing special on their end. Just two internet connections. The equipment is also fairly easy to find. The cons are that it requires two separate modems followed by a load balancing router. You only experience increased speed as long as you are dealing with multiple files or multiple parts of files such as in torrent setups. If you download a single file or use VPN your likely stuck with the single connection speed.
A link to some products in case someone on the internet stumbles on this post.

$50 no bells or whistles router
TP-LINK TL-R470T+ Load Balance Broadband Router 1 x 10/100Mbps WAN Ports 1 x Fixed LAN, 3 x Changeable WAN/LAN LAN Ports-Newegg.com

$100 if you like whistles
Amazon.com: TP-Link N300 Wireless Wi-Fi SafeStream Gigabit VPN Router with Load Balance (TL-ER604W): Computers & Accessories

Link Bonding: The pros is that you actually get added speed according to the number of lines you have. If you have a large file it still downloads at max speed and I don't know why it wouldn't work for VPN. You only need one modem. The cons are that not all ISP's can do this as it requires special equipment on their side and a special modem on your side. Basically, they spread the packets out over both lines and they get put back together once the reach your house. The modem is very hard to find and often expensive. Usually it is best to get it from the ISP.

I did find a modem that would do this for $160-300
Amazon.com: ZyXel COMMUNICATIONS VMG4380B10A VDSL2 Gateway Modem Gbe Fd Onl (VMG4380-B10A): Computers & Accessories

In my case, my internet provider can do both but they said they would give me a bundle discount if I didn't do the link bonding. The discount eventually dropped my bill lower than what I am paying now for one line so they obviously don't want me to bond it. :shock:

Hopefully this will help anyone else on the internet if they happen to live on Mars like me!
Thanks and have a good day!