Adsl and Cable Concurrently - Possible?

Hi,

Have BE Adsl2+ connection, and am due to have Virgin Cable installed today. Can I alternate between one and the other/use both simultaneously? I have several PCs and intend to use both Ethernet and wireless.

Would it be possible to have both routers (Adsl and Cable) connected via Ethernet to same PC, or is it best to have them connected to two separate PCs?

Thanks!

The two connections are totally independent of each other.

With wireless just pick the connection you want, and with Ethernet you could have both on the same LAN (turn off DHCP on one of the routers though) and then flip the PC Ethernet configuration between the two.

There are devices like http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AQD28U6/ref=as...

That can load balance across two Internet connections for you

Great thanks for prompt reply!

So I would need to switch off the DHCP off one of the routers - does it matter which? And is that possible through the router user interface?

First day on 120mbps and so far pleasantly surprised - given all the bad press Virgin has been having

Let us hope I don't live to regret my words!

This advice is generally not the most secure or efficient way of setting up system with two of more broadband connections. In practice what you should create is a network that has something like a Y linking you by two paths to the outside world with the bottom link to your network through the load balancing router.

If you rely upon WiFi links for your domestic network, it is generally best to get a load balancing router with WiFi and then switch off the WiFi on the router/modems provided by your broadband providers. If you don't do that, you are likely to find that WiFi connected machines can access the outside world but not the rest of your network.

This can be done via the user pages on each of the routers, though you will need to go beyond the standard set-up wizards. None of the steps is particularly complex, but the process may be non-trivial for a novice so you should get advice from someone who knows a little about computer networking before buying or attempting to set up your equipment.

Thanks for the help/advice. What would you recommend for a load balancing router? And if I were to pursue this path, would I switch off DHCP on both the modem/routers provided by BE and Virgin?

I use a Cisco RV042, which is a small business router. The version with Gigabit ports is the RV042G but neither of them has WiFi. I use a separate WiFi access point because I have a Mac Airport Extreme on my network. Draytek offers similar capabilities with WiFi - look for the Draytek 2920N - and I am sure that there is a TP-Link model that would meet your needs. TP-Link equipment tends to be less expensive than Draytek but the firmware is of variable quality. You don't need a router with an ADSL or cable modem.

In my configuration the DHCP servers on the router/modems between the Cisco and the broadband lines are switched on but the gateway addresses are modified to, for example, 192.168.20.1 and 192.168.30.1. They set up private sub-networks to which the two WAN ports on the Cisco are each connected with the result that the WAN ports have dynamically assigned addresses like 192.168.20.101 and 192.168.30.101. Everything linked to the switch side of the Cisco is part of a single private network but the links to each broadband service are controlled by their respective router/modems. There are multiple levels of network address translation but the overhead is small and the security is relatively high.

This is all far more than any normal residential user will require, but it can be justified if the equipment is needed to run a small business for which you need a high level of availability and security. If you are in that position, the costs of acquiring and setting up the equipment are much less than the costs of things going wrong.

Thanks again for such a comprehensive response; but that setup sounds way beyond my needs, as I am not running a business, merely an enthusiast/geek - and not very proficient with networking

Perhaps I would be ok with the setup Mr Saffron suggested (?)

Edited by deleted (Wed 28-Aug-13 15:32:33)

The TP-Link router that Mr Saffron suggested is more or less equivalent to the Draytek 2920 (without wireless). So the question is whether you need to access your network and load balance from wireless devices rather than just from wired devices. If you want to do that, then you need either (a) something equivalent to the 2920N, or (b) the TP-Link router with a separate wireless access point (operating as a bridge).

Any way around the cost will be getting towards £150, simply because load balancing routers are not cheap.

great- thanks once more!

Would this fit the bill: Tp-Link TL-ER604W SafeStream Wireless N Gigabit Broadband VPN Router?

Edited by deleted (Thu 29-Aug-13 14:05:16)

I'm not an expert but can't see why you would want load balancing between such different connections.

Virgin Connections sometimes have high jitter which can be a problem for gamers. So it may be that you would want to route a Gamer machine to use a BE gateway rather than Virgin. I have forgotten what DHCP options the two routers have but even if they are not flexible you can always use static LAN configurations on PCs to achieve this.

I can't see that you need to buy a new router unless you really want it for a specific reason. I'm currently running my Superhub in modem mode and using a virtual appliance router on my HTPC (which was always on anyway). The results are surprisingly good.

I can't speak from personal experience but it seems to meet your requirements. TP-Link are (I think) the biggest seller of residential & SME networking equipment in China, so they are not a bad bet.

Thanks for your response:
The reason I am looking for a way to switch seamlessly between the two is s very much the one you allude to - I intend to use the Be connection for online gaming, and the Virgin one for everything else (assuming it continues to behave itself )

(How easy is a virtual appliance router to configure and would it fulfil the purpose I have in mind?)

Edited by deleted (Fri 30-Aug-13 00:03:32)

I too had Be and VM at the same time. I now have VM 60Mb and BT Inf 40Mb using a Draytek 2920.

Very simple to use. I route the gaming traffic through the BT Inf (used to be Be) connection as it's far more stable latency wise. HTTP traffic & bit torrent through the VM. I have had VM for 2 years and it's quality of service is poor. But I keep it because they gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.

The 2920 also has failover so if one connection fails the other is used.

The TP Link Mr Saffron posted looks to be good as well and considerably cheaper than the Draytek. Good review on SmallNeBuilder:
Review

Good price here and I can recommend them...
Transparent

http://www.pfsense.org/ offer a free virtual appliance which runs on the free vmware player software. It is relatively easy to set up as all the router software comes pre-installed with a default config. Whilst pfsense it is designed for non experts I imagine it is still a little more complex to get working compared to a dual wan router like the tp-link. Also it is only really suitable if you have an always on PC with a spare NIC.

It would do what you want but I only suggested it as a bit of fun.

To achieve what you want I would just run with a non dhcp lan ip address and just flip the gateway manually. However my Virgin connection currently has much lower latency than any DSL connection I ever had so don't just assume it will be bad.