Dual ADSL router recommendations

Hi all,

At my work we have 2xADSL lines and a 3-router setup. Currently we have a Thomsom 585v7 handling one ADSL line, a 3Com Office Connect handling the other, and a DrayTek Vigor2910 handling the supposed load-balancing across the two lines, connecting to the other routers via Ethernet.

Unfortunately this setup doesn't quite hit the spot.

Ideally what I'm looking for is a router that has 2 actual UK ADSL (ie atm) WAN connections, and can be configured for separate accounts on each (our 2 lines are with different ISPs). Having a hunt around it would seem that the vast majority of "dual WAN" routers are merely Ethernet -> Ethernet routers with 2 Ethernet WAN lines... the same as our current DrayTek.

I don't think the company would stretch to a nice, shiny Cisco 2800 (*drools*) with 2 ATM WICs.

Any suggestions?

Cheers.
Grant.

The DrayTek 2820 is one step nearer to your requirements.

It is one stop closer, thank you, but the 2nd WAN is still an Ethernet port and designed for "fail over".

Of all the Drayteks listed on their .co.uk website, this seems the closest... which is a shame.

Thank you anyway.

In reply to a post by thymox:

I don't think the company would stretch to a nice, shiny Cisco 2800 (*drools*) with 2 ATM WICs.

Look at secondhand 2620-series then....

Thank you, but I don't think they'd be too happy with second hand equipment.

What is the budget level we need to look at?

£100?
£500?
£1000?

An 1841 with 2 wic's would be cheaper about £1300. Just has a single ethernet port which might be an issue depending on how you want it to work.
Nothing wrong with second user kit you just have to make sure it's from a decent company and the most important bit is to get a Cisco maintenance contract. The 2600 series is end of life but the 2600XM series has not quite got to end of life.

Sorry to labor the point when I know you are looking for a single device solution.

But the 2nd port on the 2820 is also designed for load sharing.

OK, but can you set up PPP on both WAN links?

Our current setup is balancing the load across the two lines, but the Draytek that does the load sharing is blissfully unaware of any DSL problems. A case point - last week our Eclipse connection just stopped working. Log on to the 3Com that's connected to that line and it's reporting that the DSL line has gone down. Log on to the Draytek and it sees everything as being OK... which it is, from the Draytek's point of view - afterall, the 3Com LAN connection (to which the Draytek is connected) is up and working fine.

So, I'm looking for either a device that supports PPPoX so I can put our two DSL facing routers into bridging mode and let the loadbalancing router handle the PPP side of things too, or a router that actually has two ADSL WAN ports on it.

Cheers.
Grant.

In reply to a post by thymox:

So, I'm looking for either a device that supports PPPoX so I can put our two DSL facing routers into bridging mode and let the loadbalancing router handle the PPP side of things too, or a router that actually has two ADSL WAN ports on it.

I can see the Draytek 2820 working if you ensure the second port is attached to a unit (e.g. old speedtouch 516v6) that passes the WAN IP to the port directly. (without any PPPoE to oA translation overhead).

In that scenario should the line go down, the IP provided to the 2820 would be blank, so you'd know from one place that the line was down.

Granted not as nice as a true dual ADSL router, but I guess not many people need exactly that.