- Feb 21, 2005
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Alright, so here's the story. I'm the network administrator for my fraternity, which houses around 70 guys. Last term, due to the incompetence of our network people, we were running on a single DSL modem at like 640/540 or something of that nature.
I contacted Qwest (I had to choose DSL as there are no cable hookups in the closet) and got hooked up with three 1.5 Mbps DSL lines. We already had two Nexland 800Pro routers to help combine these connection and through "load-sharing" allow these to act as one Internet source.
However, I've had some major problems.
The largest problem that I've faced deals with AOL Instant Messenger. Being college guys, we all chat it up...all the time. The problem is that with load-sharing, people are frequently kicked off of AIM and then reconnect...only to be kicked off a few minutes later. I'm certain that this is due to the load-sharing and the movement of the connection between the external WAN connections. However, it is a major annoyance to be interrupted in conversations and such...and as it has been expressed to me...intolerable.
Furthermore, sometimes people have to click on a link multiple times before it will seem to go through...which I believe could be a DNS related problem...or somehow the computer sends information out one connection and then is transfered to the other WAN port...where it doesn't receive a signal back.
For a while, my temporary fix was to connect a DSL line to each of our two large switches. I was able to get redundancy thorugh the "stack" port or something like that. Howver, this segmented the logical network and split our workgroup (for file sharing ....etc.) in half....which is also unacceptable.
So right now, I have one 1.5 Mbps DSL connection powering an entire fraternity house. The connection is certainly slow...to say the least. The speed is unacceptable, but I have the other demands....and I don't have the $500 a month for a T1 connection. Is there another type of Internet feed that would work better.
Are better yet, is there some way that I can get these multiple connections to co-exist and allow us to do all the video streaming and chatting that we want to do...without our connections being interrupted at will?
One idea that was suggested to me by a friend was to purchase a low-quality computer and then put a bunch of NICs into it and run Linux...which apparently ( I don't know much about Linux) can essentially act as a router...where I could forward specific ports to specific internet connection. Thus, I would be able to forward all traffic on the ports that AIM frequents through only one of the set Internet connections....but I really don't know if this will work or how to go about doing it...so I'm lost in that regards. [Also, I tried to create static routes in the Nexland to do a similar "IP Forwarding" to the IP addresses of the AIM servers....but that didn't seem to be effective".
Okay, I'm sure by now you've seen the extent of my problem. It's a major hassle as I'm the only really technically related guy in the house and I don't know who to turn to. I'm unsure of what a professional company would do different from the many things and settings with the routers/modems that I've already tried.
Thanks SO much in advance for any ideas or links or help that you can provide. The 60 men of my fraternity would be extremely grateful, as this has been a major headache for both them and (especially) me since the Fall.
I contacted Qwest (I had to choose DSL as there are no cable hookups in the closet) and got hooked up with three 1.5 Mbps DSL lines. We already had two Nexland 800Pro routers to help combine these connection and through "load-sharing" allow these to act as one Internet source.
However, I've had some major problems.
The largest problem that I've faced deals with AOL Instant Messenger. Being college guys, we all chat it up...all the time. The problem is that with load-sharing, people are frequently kicked off of AIM and then reconnect...only to be kicked off a few minutes later. I'm certain that this is due to the load-sharing and the movement of the connection between the external WAN connections. However, it is a major annoyance to be interrupted in conversations and such...and as it has been expressed to me...intolerable.
Furthermore, sometimes people have to click on a link multiple times before it will seem to go through...which I believe could be a DNS related problem...or somehow the computer sends information out one connection and then is transfered to the other WAN port...where it doesn't receive a signal back.
For a while, my temporary fix was to connect a DSL line to each of our two large switches. I was able to get redundancy thorugh the "stack" port or something like that. Howver, this segmented the logical network and split our workgroup (for file sharing ....etc.) in half....which is also unacceptable.
So right now, I have one 1.5 Mbps DSL connection powering an entire fraternity house. The connection is certainly slow...to say the least. The speed is unacceptable, but I have the other demands....and I don't have the $500 a month for a T1 connection. Is there another type of Internet feed that would work better.
Are better yet, is there some way that I can get these multiple connections to co-exist and allow us to do all the video streaming and chatting that we want to do...without our connections being interrupted at will?
One idea that was suggested to me by a friend was to purchase a low-quality computer and then put a bunch of NICs into it and run Linux...which apparently ( I don't know much about Linux) can essentially act as a router...where I could forward specific ports to specific internet connection. Thus, I would be able to forward all traffic on the ports that AIM frequents through only one of the set Internet connections....but I really don't know if this will work or how to go about doing it...so I'm lost in that regards. [Also, I tried to create static routes in the Nexland to do a similar "IP Forwarding" to the IP addresses of the AIM servers....but that didn't seem to be effective".
Okay, I'm sure by now you've seen the extent of my problem. It's a major hassle as I'm the only really technically related guy in the house and I don't know who to turn to. I'm unsure of what a professional company would do different from the many things and settings with the routers/modems that I've already tried.
Thanks SO much in advance for any ideas or links or help that you can provide. The 60 men of my fraternity would be extremely grateful, as this has been a major headache for both them and (especially) me since the Fall.