WAN Aggregation question

[homeofwind]

My ISP's modem dose not support 802.3ad that is needed for ASUS ROUTER'S WAN aggregation. Anyone can share how it can be achieved? Can a net switch with 802.3ad do the job?
Or it can not be done if the modem does not support 802.3ad?

 

[Tech9]

It can't be achieved if not supported by the modem. It doesn't work reliably in Asuswrt anyway.

 

[Yota]

If your modem supports multiple devices online at the same time, and has 2 ethernet interfaces, you can try to connect the two LANs of the modem to the WAN and LAN 4 of the router respectively, and then enable dual WAN in the router, load balancing 1:1.

This should give you the closest thing to link aggregation.

 

[Tech9]

@Yota, this won't work for many reasons - from unable to connect second WAN because the ISP won't allow two connections to the same device to completely broken connections because of very basic load balancing in Asuswrt. The two features above are used mostly for marketing.

 

[Yota]

@Yota, this won't work for many reasons - from unable to connect second WAN because the ISP won't allow two connections to the same device to completely broken connections because of very basic load balancing in Asuswrt. The two features above are used mostly for marketing.

You're right, most ISPs don't offer multiple IP addresses to their customers.

But it is possible if the ISP's modem is in router mode and not bridged.

Also, Asuswrt's load balancing sucks, I totally agree with that.

 

[Tech9]

But there is nothing to load balance with both WAN interfaces on the same network when the modem/router is in Router mode.

 

[CaptainSTX]

@Yota, this won't work for many reasons - from unable to connect second WAN because the ISP won't allow two connections to the same device to completely broken connections because of very basic load balancing in Asuswrt. The two features above are used mostly for marketing.

While I haven't used load balancing I am using link aggregation between my MB8600 and my ASUS AX86S and it does seem to function and provides some benefit on my 1200/40 Mbps ISP connection. While I don't currently have a method to test for network speeds above 1 gig, when I check the results of spdMerlin the results on the WAN are consistently 150 - 200 Mbps faster than they were on my AC86 which I believe has the same dual core processor. Not conclusive proof that LAG is helping but running LAG on the modem and router hasn't made my WAN connection unstable which is more important to me than any through put increase.

If I had been willing to spend more than the $29 net cost for the AX86S from Amazon I would invest in both a modem and a router with 2.5 gig ports as a better more future proof solution but the 1200/40 service from Comcast is was less expensive than a slower option which was more than adequate for my needs.