Load balancing with two ISPs

[trunolimit]

Hello I was wondering if there is a way to load balance between 2 different ISPs. If I were to have lets say a cable internet connection with 3mbs down/up and a DSL internet connection with lets say 1mbps down/up is there some way of combining these two links logically and gain some internet speed?

I have two cisco catalyst at my disposal if that works.

 

[claykin]

You need a dual WAN endpoint/router.

I use the Zyxel USG series and am very happy.

Just note that all dual WAN endpoints will allow you to do failover/round robin/least load first type allocation but it won't truly combine/bond both WAN connections.

If this is for home use the USG50 will probably do the job. Its under $250. If you need more power and/or plan to use the UTM services (AV, etc) look at the USG100. If you want triple WAN look at the USG200.

 

[JoeJoe]

You could try http://us.sharedband.com as well, $25 per month.

 

[trunolimit]

Have you used shareband? Have you had any problems? if it does what it promises then OMG that's awesome. In a place like New York City where most of our clients live it's a god send. I am at the mercy of whatever ISP is available in a certain building. With this, I can just bond a cable and DSL line and call it a day.

 

[stevech]

There's an IETF (RFC) standard called Link Aggregation - for routers that can combine multiple WAN connections to benefit a single TCP or GRE tunnel connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_aggregation

I've seen a number of low cost routers that support the standard.

I do not know how they deal with the vastly different packet latency of DSL and cable modems (faster than DSL), as latency is first due to the bit rate/speed and secondly due to the hop count.

 

[JoeJoe]

Sharedband works very well.

I didn't keep it because my only choice of ISP CenturyLink DSL is oversold, so I can't even get a single 1.5 Mbps DSL link maxed out.

 

[GregN]

Load balancing and failover, with limitations is one of the enterprise features of PFSense, a router distro for DIY routers.

Might want to take a look. There are quite a few write-ups about it here at SNB. Do you have an old machine laying around?