Best of both worlds? - VDSL & Cable & 4G

Hi all,

Just interested to know if anyone is running a xDSL connection and a Virgin Media Cable connection simultaneously through a load balancing router of some kind?

I would be interested to know what router you are using, and generally how it is configured (not details) and how your setup performs.

I am curious if a setup can be made that offers the benefits of consistent low ping (xDSL) and raw speed but with higher and more variable latency (Cable) and route traffic automatically through the best connection. I'd prefer that it dynamically routes traffic through the best connection rather than configuring fixed static routes.

Anyone running such a setup?

Taking this further 4G could also be added to potentially make use of the fast upload speeds available when you have a good connection.

Thanks

Andrew

I'm not load balancing ADSL and cable, but for something like that you might want to have a look at shared band and/or Andrews and Arnold ISP.

As for ADSL and 4G, I am doing that (well, whilst my 4G allowance remains). I'm testing a device that sends most of the traffic out via BT, but when that isn't fast enough it sends the extra bit by 4G. It uses my phone's 4G, but can also support MiFi devices and some makes of dongle.

Myself & 2 neighbours work from home (for separate companies) and we're all keen not to travel to the office due to broadband issues any more than necessary. Because we're geeks - we've fibred between our houses, routers (Cisco 2620 series) running to "fail" first to the next door "clockwise" using HSRP and second to the next door "anticlockwise", all 3 common routers have a 3G modem attached (but only "local" traffic" will ever set the 3G active if there are no valid routes to the rest of the world)

So each house has a router that has these connections:

GigE1/0 - local LAN
GigE1/1 - FTTC modem
GigE1/2 - next door clockwise
GigE1/3 - next door anticlockwise
FastE2/0 - 3G modem

In your case you could simply substitute the GigE1/2 connection for your cable modem... then for routing, it would depend on what protocols the ISP is allowing to pass over the connection - they all have different methods of determining the "best" route (hop count, bandwidth, latency,...) but none of them know which is the one you actually want - so choose well - or simply go static.