backup internet line

[MrDingleDangle]

This is copied from an email a friend sent me...anyone know?

My boss at work has a T1 line connected to his house from the greenwich capital building in greenwich that keeps going down. I'd like to add a cable modem to his home to add a degree of redundancy. Can you buy a router that can accept a T1 line and a cable modem line and then connect it to a pc so that the pc continues to have access to the internet if the t1 goes down?

 

[Soybomb]

Why not fix the problem that is the T1 going down? That shouldn't be happening.

 

[MrDingleDangle]

yeah i know...thats what i told him...but he was just looking for a solution while he tried to figure that out

 

[cmetz]

No circuit has 100% uptime, even a T1, so some redundancy might be appropriate. If you want strict failover, that is a much easier problem than trying to make real use of both at once.

A Cisco 2600 series (2600XM for example) with two Ethernet ports and a T1 CSU port would work well here, just configure two default routes, where the one towards the T1 has a lower metric than the other, and appropriate NAT magic to NAT if necessary for each line (probably needed for the cable line, don't know about the T1).

 

[Kremlar]

I haven't tried one yet, but Hawking Technologies has their FR24 dual port WAN router that sounds like it would do what you ask.

Ridiculously cheap, well under $100.

Does it work well? No idea yet.

 

[labgeek]

http://www.nexland.com/turbo.cfm

? First Home/Small Business Router with Dual Modem Connections
? Surf & Download Multiple Files/MP3s at DOUBLE the Speed
? Each Connection Backs Up the Other Should One Go Down - Auto Failover
? Mix Cable/DSL/SDSL/T1 Internet Connection Types
...
? Auto-Dialing Analog/ISDN Serial Port for Third Backup

 

[bozo1]

That Nexland product sounds cool. Unfortunately, looks like Symantec just munched them and their site doesn't have any Nexland info yet. 🙁