Load Balancing two DSL Lines to Get Fast Connection

[techfranz]

I am looking for a recommendation on a Load Balanced Router.

We have access to Windstream MAXSPEED DSL with theoretical download speeds of 12mbs.

I would like to "bond" two of these 12mbs modems on different lines together in some sort of load balancing arrangement with the hopes of getting something close to 24mbs down.

I need two things:
-If I have streaming media playing and a file backup occurring I want it to split these streams according to the fastest connection. So in a perfect world these two data intensive activities would end up on two different modems allowing higher peak speeds for each activity.
-I want the router to be fairly proactive in getting the best possible speeds between the two connections. In other words failover or allowing one connection to just sleep is unacceptable. The load balancing needs to be actively managing the packets.

Any ideas or recommendations?

 

[Cloud200]

First choice:
Peplink Balance 20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042210U6/?tag=snbforums-20

Second choice:
Luxul XBR-2300
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00609SULQ/?tag=snbforums-20

Third choice:
Linksys LRT224
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GECDC26/?tag=snbforums-20

Fourth choice:
TPLink-ER6020
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A8NWU70/?tag=snbforums-20

5th/6th choice:
ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING OR WANT TO LEARN ADVANCED NETWORKING!
Mikrotik HEX
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016E93IQS/?tag=snbforums-20
Ubiquiti ER-X
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YFJT29C/?tag=snbforums-20

As you go down the list you get cheaper but more complex. That's really the long and short of it.
All of these routers DO NOT HAVE WIFI BUILT IN.
You will need to buy an additional wireless access point or use a router configured as a WAP.

There are other options but these are my recommendations.

 

[L&LD]

I am looking for a recommendation on a Load Balanced Router.

We have access to Windstream MAXSPEED DSL with theoretical download speeds of 12mbs.

I would like to "bond" two of these 12mbs modems on different lines together in some sort of load balancing arrangement with the hopes of getting something close to 24mbs down.

I need two things:
-If I have streaming media playing and a file backup occurring I want it to split these streams according to the fastest connection. So in a perfect world these two data intensive activities would end up on two different modems allowing higher peak speeds for each activity.
-I want the router to be fairly proactive in getting the best possible speeds between the two connections. In other words failover or allowing one connection to just sleep is unacceptable. The load balancing needs to be actively managing the packets.

Any ideas or recommendations?

I would find it hard to believe a router could do what you want.

You should be looking for an ISP provider that offers that kind of service and hardware (bonded channels).

Any router you consider will not be able to combine both channels to a single 24Mbps connection to a single device. That is simply not how routers work.

Either find another ISP or wait until it is available.

A load balanced router will give you other benefits, but not what you're asking for today.

 

[Cloud200]

I would find it hard to believe a router could do what you want.

You should be looking for an ISP provider that offers that kind of service and hardware (bonded channels).

Any router you consider will not be able to combine both channels to a single 24Mbps connection to a single device. That is simply not how routers work.

Either find another ISP or wait until it is available.

A load balanced router will give you other benefits, but not what you're asking for today.

He understands that.
Thats why the word bond is in quotations.
Note the two real word requirements:

-If I have streaming media playing and a file backup occurring I want it to split these streams according to the fastest connection. So in a perfect world these two data intensive activities would end up on two different modems allowing higher peak speeds for each activity.
-I want the router to be fairly proactive in getting the best possible speeds between the two connections. In other words failover or allowing one connection to just sleep is unacceptable. The load balancing needs to be actively managing the packets.

 

[L&LD]

He understands that.
Thats why the word bond is in quotations.
Note the two real word requirements:

In that case; buy as many ISP connections as necessary and configure them specifically for how the network is used (each connection with a dedicated router).

What will make this fail or get expensive really fast is the requirement to do it 'automatically'.

 

[Cloud200]

In that case; buy as many ISP connections as necessary and configure them specifically for how the network is used (each connection with a dedicated router).

What will make this fail or get expensive really fast is the requirement to do it 'automatically'.

I just tested with a Peplink Balance 50 in production right now.
If the traffic uses multiple streams or the traffic is two different streams coming from the same PC it will aggregate them. Eg. two DSL lines 7.1/.768 with a multistream speed test gives me 13.02/1.31
Something like bittorrent, downloading games on steam, syncing files from dropbox . . . all will benefit from this.

 

[coxhaus]

You are going to gain more bandwidth which makes it seem like it is a faster connection. A single task is still limited to the fastest one connection.

 

[techfranz]

Thank you guys for the information. Fortunately our local WISP says they have Line of Site to their transmitter, so I hopefully won't have to go the Windstream with Peplink Router route.
I was looking forward to configuring it. Then again I could Load Balance the WISP and Windstream, but why bother since the speeds are sufficient.

I think more Rural places should have WISP providers. http://www.netlinx.net/

 

[stevech]

I am looking for a recommendation on a Load Balanced Router.

We have access to Windstream MAXSPEED DSL with theoretical download speeds of 12mbs.

I would like to "bond" two of these 12mbs modems on different lines together in some sort of load balancing arrangement with the hopes of getting something close to 24mbs down.

I need two things:
-If I have streaming media playing and a file backup occurring I want it to split these streams according to the fastest connection. So in a perfect world these two data intensive activities would end up on two different modems allowing higher peak speeds for each activity.
-I want the router to be fairly proactive in getting the best possible speeds between the two connections. In other words failover or allowing one connection to just sleep is unacceptable. The load balancing needs to be actively managing the packets.

Any ideas or recommendations?

Can you change to using Cable Modem to get higher speed? using two WANs is too expensive in purchase and recurring. Most cable modems are at 50-100Mbps now. Mine is 110 down, 10 up, for about $45/mo within the TV/Phone bundle.

 

[techfranz]

Can you change to using Cable Modem to get higher speed? using two WANs is too expensive in purchase and recurring. Most cable modems are at 50-100Mbps now. Mine is 110 down, 10 up, for about $45/mo within the TV/Phone bundle.

The last cable junction is 860 feet down the road. The cable company said running the 860 ft will cost $2000 plus two electric poles that need replaced, potentially costing $5000-10000. So looking for options before I go that route.

 

[L&LD]

The last cable junction is 860 feet down the road. The cable company said running the 860 ft will cost $2000 plus two electric poles that need replaced, potentially costing $5000-10000. So looking for options before I go that route.

What does it cost to move the house?

But seriously, keep talking to them and if closer to the $2K price, that will be the best long term option, no doubt.

 

[sfx2000]

The last cable junction is 860 feet down the road. The cable company said running the 860 ft will cost $2000 plus two electric poles that need replaced, potentially costing $5000-10000. So looking for options before I go that route.

Did they really say two poles need to be replaced?

If so, not your problem - that's an excuse - and perhaps take your case to your local community commission (cable co's have franchise agreements that give them de facto monopoly, provided they can provide that service), also, since it's effective enough for your DSL provider to provide service over the same poles that CableCO says are insufficient - well, that's even a better case...

Just saying... depends on how hard you want to push the issue...

 

[maleksandrov]

Techfranz,

You can also consider a pretty decent dual WAN RV320/325 routers in your choice for a load balanced router. You can configure inbound load balancing. It distributes inbound traffic equally to every WAN port to make best use of bandwidth. It also can prevent traffic from unequal distribution and congestion. Load Balance uses both WAN connections simultaneously to increase the available bandwidth. The router balances the traffic between the two interfaces in a weighted round-robin method.

Moreover it supports additional service like Protocol Binding. It requires this (WAN) interface to be used for specified protocols, source, and destination addresses. It allows you to bind specific outbound traffic to a WAN interface.This is used especially in your case where certain traffic from LAN to WAN must go through the same WAN interface.

You can take a look at the online emulator: https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/911/cisco-small-business-online-device-emulators

Unfortunately for Rural places with greater distances still the legacy (ADSL/ADSL2+... and so on) technology remains the main backbone for internet connection. On the other hand with some investment in infrastructure and fiber optic trails ISPs could achieve great throughput and cost effective Broadband Internet connection for thousands of people for decades ahead.

After all it depends on whether the aim justifies the means.

 

[marslauncher]

I'm being forced down a similar path as the OP, cable run to the house covering 407 ft of overlash and 1200ft of new overhead cable from Spectrum (100mb * 10) would be $9k, I offered to run specced coax to a meet me box at the edge of the property (800ft) but so far no go, part of the cost is $3000 for a railroad permit, but per the RR website that is only $800, other options are a 10x10 business class fiber connect with AT&T for $545 a month but no install charge. And then lastly 4x 6mb DSL connections @ $40 a month each. Would it be worth it for the WAN load balancing of the DSL connections? And recommendations for 4+ WAN load balancers?

Thanks

John C

 

[Samir]

I'm being forced down a similar path as the OP, cable run to the house covering 407 ft of overlash and 1200ft of new overhead cable from Spectrum (100mb * 10) would be $9k, I offered to run specced coax to a meet me box at the edge of the property (800ft) but so far no go, part of the cost is $3000 for a railroad permit, but per the RR website that is only $800, other options are a 10x10 business class fiber connect with AT&T for $545 a month but no install charge. And then lastly 4x 6mb DSL connections @ $40 a month each. Would it be worth it for the WAN load balancing of the DSL connections? And recommendations for 4+ WAN load balancers?

Thanks

John C

I've been in a similar situation as you before. Depending on the bandwidth of the connections, a used cisco rv016 may be perfect for 4 dsl connections. The rv016 is unique in that it can use up to 7 wan connections and has a built-in switch (ports 3-7 are assignable as wan or lan). I used to use the rv016 to combine three 25/5 cable connections and it did a really good job. It is the ancestor of the current rv325 recommended above, but has more wan ports than the current product line. I have seen wan-to-lan speeds of up to 40Mbps on v1 and v2 hardware, but I can't recall if that was for each port or total for the router.

The rv016 basically will assign each connection to a different wan depending on how you set up the load balancing. The best way I found was by putting in the bandwidth of each connection into the router's configuration screen and let it balance the connections. The results were great.

An example of how it helped on download; if you had a web page made of 40-60 elements--pictures, and other things that had to be loaded for the full page to be generated, the rv016 would send each request to the wan with the most available bandwidth (it tracks how much is currently being used vs available), so that each element would use all 4 wan connections if they are the same speed. This effectively meant that you were downloading at whatever your download bandwidth is times the number of wan connections. ie if each connection was 25/5 and you had 4, your download bandwidth would be 100.

How it helped on upload; each upload session would also load balance in a similar manner as download based on wan with most available bandwidth. So if you were uploading 4 files to an ftp server, it would use all 4 wan connections--one for each file--thereby increasing your upload bandwidth by the number of wan connections you have. ie if each connection was 25/5 and you had 4, your upload bandwidth would be 20.

But the drawback was on single point connections--upload/download of a single file--this would be limited to the bandwidth of whatever wan connection that connection was using.

Hope this helps.

 

[Xelas]

Yeah, the RV016 has been out of production for a long time, now.

You can load-balance with PFSense - it might be cheaper to get a small SFF PC and stick a quad-port NICs into it for your WAN (and another for your LAN, too, if you want). You can get them on ebay for peanuts all day long.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_...PRESS+NIC+NC364T&_trksid=p2047675.m4099.l9146

There is also a circuit type called "Ethernet Over Copper", which, under the skin, is multiple bonded VDSL loops. The more loops and the less the distance to the CO, the more bandwidth you can get. The limit is that the copper wiring must be under about 6000 feet from your house to the telco's CO. This isn't likely in your scenario. In those cases (commercial) where I got these circuits, I could get reliable 15/15 or even 20/20 on 4 pairs, where the location could barely get 5/0.7 DSL. The bundle of circuits looks like a single connection to your router, so no load balancing needed, and the beauty is that if a loop goes down or gets cut, you lose only that portion of the bandwidth, and not the whole circuit.

 

[Samir]

Yeah, the RV016 has been out of production for a long time, now.

You can load-balance with PFSense - it might be cheaper to get a small SFF PC and stick a quad-port NICs into it for your WAN (and another for your LAN, too, if you want). You can get them on ebay for peanuts all day long.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_...PRESS+NIC+NC364T&_trksid=p2047675.m4099.l9146

There is also a circuit type called "Ethernet Over Copper", which, under the skin, is multiple bonded VDSL loops. The more loops and the less the distance to the CO, the more bandwidth you can get. The limit is that the copper wiring must be under about 6000 feet from your house to the telco's CO. This isn't likely in your scenario. In those cases (commercial) where I got these circuits, I could get reliable 15/15 or even 20/20 on 4 pairs, where the location could barely get 5/0.7 DSL. The bundle of circuits looks like a single connection to your router, so no load balancing needed, and the beauty is that if a loop goes down or gets cut, you lose only that portion of the bandwidth, and not the whole circuit.

It has, but my two rv016s have been nothing short of bulletproof at one point working non-stop in 100F heat for two years. Neither one of the two have had any issues. They're just slower than the 100Mb+ bandwidth that our connections are now. But I'm sure they'll work great for bonding 4 12/2 connections or some other slower connection.

PFsense can be great for those that want to set one up, but it's a steeper learning curve than a box router like the rv016. Plus, a quad ethernet card costs almost as a working rv016:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/CISCO-SMALL...891959?hash=item283c17e9b7:g:PW4AAOSwxDNZhKVy

 

[Xelas]

The problem with unsupported routers is that the router/firewall are usually a small network's only line of defense. Routers that don't receive firmware updates become susceptible to vulnerabilities that get discovered after the latest firmware revision, and jeopardizes the security of the network.
The RV016 recieved a firmware update early this year, which is great, but how much longer will they get updates? I've had customers' old routers (albeit consumer-grade stuff, not anything form the RV series) get hijacked and been called in to investigate network issues. In a couple cases, the firmware was so jacked up that the router turned into a switch, exposing the network to the WWW (happened with a couple old Linksys routers).

 

[Samir]

The problem with unsupported routers is that the router/firewall are usually a small network's only line of defense. Routers that don't receive firmware updates become susceptible to vulnerabilities that get discovered after the latest firmware revision, and jeopardizes the security of the network.
The RV016 recieved a firmware update early this year, which is great, but how much longer will they get updates? I've had customers' old routers (albeit consumer-grade stuff, not anything form the RV series) get hijacked and been called in to investigate network issues. In a couple cases, the firmware was so jacked up that the router turned into a switch, exposing the network to the WWW (happened with a couple old Linksys routers).

Agreed that this can happen. But usually that's on something that has a reason to be a target. I highly doubt anyone is actively looking for rv016s to attack since they're obsolete so very few are in production and that the value of what's behind them has to be just as trivial.

At $35 if something happens, you at least know what does work and you move up to a peplink or a newer rv-series that can fit the bill.

The problem with the entire IT industry is that it constantly preaches updating to stay up to date, which in turn keeps product cycles short and the industry still an industry. Everything in IT can be hardened to the point software updates aren't necessary (as anything that can be done in software can be done in hardware and vice-versa), but then you do have to throw away stuff as you need new features, etc, which was supposed to be the benefit of software embedded hardware--upgradability. Instead, software upgradability has become the achillies heel of the IT industry. Computers from decades ago never had these issues because they were more hardware than software, and the software that they ran at the time was very closely knit to the hardware. The constant bug-patching of today's updates is nothing more than an endless and futile attempt to fix something that will always break until it is replaced with something with the same defect rate. The hardware computing devices of the past that did the job and didn't have bugs, issues, and holes are cast aside as being vulnerable, which they might be, but no more so than the broken cycle of constant IT updates to keep things at some sort of 'safe' state.

The fact is that there will always be a hole--patches or not. The question is where you want your hole to be--on your head where everyone can see it--or tucked away under your bum where someone would have to make some effort to get at it.