I'm about to have two broadband internet connections

[yukichigai]

I've been having difficulty with my DSL as of late. Ever since the access card for my line was fried in the remote terminal I'm attached to my DSL has been periodically disconnecting randomly. It's not my modem, it's not my router, it's not my computer, and this is according to AT&T. (Their techs, anyway. AT&T refuses to exclude that possibility despite overwhelming evidence) It's also, according to them, not their configuration or their line. Basically, it's something in the remote terminal they can't see. It's driving me nuts, and now that Charter is offering 10M/1M service in my area I decided to switch. I just picked up the cable modem today and I'll be hooking it up tonight.

Here's the thing: my contract with AT&T isn't up until the end of December. I can downgrade my service so the cost will be minimal, but for the next three months I'll have two highspeed internet connections.

This makes me tingly.

I know there are routers which can handle two broadband connections simultaneously and share them, but I'd rather not shell out the dough for one of those considering I'll only be using it for the next three months. I have a machine running 2000 Advanced Server, so I was hoping there might be a way to do it through that. That, or perhaps someone could point me to a user-friendly Linux distro which is ideal for this type of use and supports UPnP.

In the meantime I figure I'll use the DSL connection as a "backup" connection. I have two hardware routers and the 2k Server is my DHCP server. I figure I can change the DNS and Gateway entries to include a second router hooked up to the DSL modem in the search order, so that if it can't find it on the Cable connection it goes through the DSL. Not exactly shotgunning, but at least it'll get some use.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Clog DSL with P2P use and do normal stuff on cable.

 

[InlineFive]

Do a search, this has been discussed at length in the past.

Bottom line, for home users it's not that practical for the cost.

 

[yukichigai]

Search for what exactly? All the terms I throw in give me no results.

 

[spidey07]

without a decent router it will be next to impossible to do.

The thing you are googling is "dual wan router"

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: spidey07
without a decent router it will be next to impossible to do.

The thing you are googling is "dual wan router"

Eh, like I said, I already know a hardware solution is not really justified. I'm looking for some kind of software solution through 2k Advanced Server or some *nix build.

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: spidey07
without a decent router it will be next to impossible to do.

The thing you are googling is "dual wan router"

This is right on..

You are going to need something that will either load balance or perform multiplexing of the two connections.. (Nexland Pro 800 Turbo Router)

 

[Missing Ghost]

You can do load balancing for free using something like linux. If you really want the best for this you could also try openBSD.