Dual ADSL

Hi all, having finally had enough of Virgin Media and their file sharing policy, i am looking to switch to ADSL. My TV is currently through Sky so was looking at taking on their broadband to but even though i live less than 1 mile from my nearest exchange, they estimate i will only get speeds up to 8 meg

My question is this. If i was to take on this line and also take on another line through BE*, could i bond these together something like THIS?

Will this do the same job as say BE* bonded service?

I download quite a lot, well actually i am always downloading something be it through torrents or newsgroups. For arguments sake, If Sky's estimate of 8mb line is correct, that would mean i would be downloading approx 1mb/s. If i had two of these when downloading a single torrent, would this mean i get a download speed of 2mb/s? Is this possible through the use of one of those dual adsl routers or does it just act as a backup?

Many thanks

jc0r

No, to use BE bonding you must have the same IP address down both lines. However you could use load balancing to combine the two connections. Either of these options would result in doubling the download bandwidth like you say.

However, the best way to tell what your connection is capable of is to post your line stats reported by your router.

Also, what exchange are you on?

Well i do not have the lines yet but my nearest exchange would be CMEDG.

Ive since spoke to customer service at www.broadbandstuff.co.uk and the guy on the phone said it will not improve speed, if i am currently getting 1.8mb/s and got another identical line, i will still only get 1.8mb/s total. This is all very confusing!

Well ADSL speed depends on the distance. You can get some idea from the BT ADSL checker, or the samknows mapping engine, or TBB maps, but you'll only really know when you can get your router stats.

Maybe customer service didn't understand the question. I wonder what they think bonding does?

If you post your router stats we can give a likely speed estimate. See http://kitz.co.uk/adsl/frogstats.php

An 8Mbps (8 million bits per second) sync rate would allow you to download at roughly 1MBps (1 million bytes per second).

I dont currently have a router, or ADSL yet. So giving you stats unfortunatly i cannot do. I am just trying to figure out whether i should order the ADSL atm. From everything i read there seems to be differing reports on what is capable from a dual wan bonded router. The majority of my traffic like i say is ytorrent and newsgroups, which i believe supports multiple onnections, which again i am told will work. However, if i was to download a single file from an ftp, i cant seem to find a definitive answer whether that will mean ill get roughly double the speed by having two lines.

In reply to a post by jc0r:

However, if i was to download a single file from an ftp, i cant seem to find a definitive answer whether that will mean ill get roughly double the speed by having two lines.

for a single stream, bonding will, load balancing won't.

there are several different types of bonding, hence your confusion. Some of them aren't bonding at all. The options (or at least some of them) are ...

1. Line bonding where the DSL system bonds two physical lines at the lowest level and presents as a single link to the layers above. Use by Be and Rutland Telecom.

2. Multilink PPP where a single IP address is provided and two circuits terminate at the same PPP server (need not be the same ISP end circuits but need to be provided by one provider with the multilnk capable kit). Often uses Cisco router at customer end.

3. VPN solutions where multilnk VPN routers pass traffic to each other over multiple links, appearing at both ends to be a single tunnel. May require expensive hardware eg Firebrick or similar. Operates at the IP level so can be over different ISPs or technologies

4. Sharedband (.com) routing traffic over 2 or more lines to a remote server that combines the traffic. Appears as a single IP address at the server end. Managed service.

5. Load balancing routers that fire traffic down two or more lines according to present rules or load. May limit a single application to one line, best suited to a multi-user situation to load balance users to lines.

All but the last should give you >180% of the slowest line for a single data stream, possibly more depending how they handle different line rates / latencies and the overhead load.

As you will need a line anyway, if you can spare a few pounds to get useful information, like line stats, there are two alternatives I can suggest.

1) Get a phone line installed by BT on their 18-month contract £30 installation deal. Then take broadband from O2 on their 30-day happiness guarantee, with no intention of keeping it. That comes with a free loaned ADSL/ADSL2+ router.

2) Get phone line and broadband installed by Plusnet. Even if you take the annual contract you get out of that by paying the deferred broadband setup charge and router price. Otherwise both phone and broadband are on monthly with 10 days notice. (I believe you can keep the Plusnet line rental and use other ISPs on it).

In both cases the line should be fine as one of the two you are considering. If you decide not to go the balancing/bonding route then all that is ruled out is full Sky LLU with the 18-month BT line contract. You can still get Sky LLU with Sky calls.

As has been suggested, you can get another estimate of likely speed using samknows's Mapping Engine. See if that confirms the exchange as well.