Looking for Dual WAN Router (Need Help Purchasing)

[smithers007]

Since TomsHardware is pretty much a dead site these days, I figured I'd try here.

I have two separate DSL lines coming into my house, each is 1.5Mb. I was wondering what brand/model router I could go with, but I only see one available one on the market -- that doesn't have wifi.

I keep seeing the small business Ciso router, but it does not support WiFi.

My intention is to gain more bandwidth with the use of this router. There are 'no' business needs, too. It's just to have more bandwidth, as I live in the middle of no where.

 

[smithers007]

Well, after looking around more, there are no dual-wan routers with wifi.

It's 2011, wtf....

 

[rambonutz]

While I was searching for ADSL modem a couple weeks ago, I came across DrayTek. Their 2820 and 2830 series support dual WAN. You can visit their website at http://www.draytek.com/user/index.php.

I can't comment on their quality and/or reliability since I have never owned one.

 

[smithers007]

While I was searching for ADSL modem a couple weeks ago, I came across DrayTek. Their 2820 and 2830 series support dual WAN. You can visit their website at http://www.draytek.com/user/index.php.

I can't comment on their quality and/or reliability since I have never owned one.

I did some reading around on them, they seem to be fairly good. I went a head and ordered one.

Thank you!

 

[JackMDS]

If you can not find one that support WIFI you buy a good wire only Dual WAN + you buy a Wireless Router.

Then you configure the Wireless Router as a switch with an access point.

Here how-to, http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

Dual WAN Router, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833124160

Wireless Router, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833162031

P.S., In general you get a below comprise devices when you buy combos.

 

[smithers007]

Alright folks, problem here and I didn't know this was going to come down to this as I didn't understand.

I purchased a DrayTek 2820n dual Wan router. There's one huge problem:

I need dual RJ-11 jacks on the router. This one has one RJ-11 and one RJ-45.

Where I live I can only get DSL at 1.5Mb. I was wanting to have two DSL (RJ-11 jacks) lines come in and do load balancing on them.

Example: I'm downloading at 100%. 50% downloads on DSL1, and 50% downloads on DSL2. The problem I see is they don't make routers with dual RJ-11 connections.

I'm at a total loss here as what to do. Is it possible to use my other single DSL RJ-11 router and take the RJ-45 cable from it and plug it into this DrayTek RJ-45 connector? (is that even possible to do something like that?)

Example:
DSL1 RJ-11 Line plugs into my DrayTek
DSL2 RJ-11 Line plugs into my other Router

Plug in an RJ-45 from the Other router into the DrayTek RJ-45 connector

The DrayTek can then see Two seperate DSL lines and load balance.

Yay?

 

[theevilsharpie]

Example: I'm downloading at 100%. 50% downloads on DSL1, and 50% downloads on DSL2. The problem I see is they don't make routers with dual RJ-11 connections.

Load balancing doesn't work this way. Unless your DSL connections come from the same ISP and they specifically support bonding your DSL connections (if you don't know, they don't), your maximum download speed will be 1.5Mb/s. If you have two computers downloading a file, a router that is capable of doing true load balancing can intelligently route the computers over both DSL connections so they can both download at 1.5Mb/s. However, less expensive dual-WAN routers typically don't have very good load balancing capabilities and are only effective for WAN failover.

As for your particular scenario, you don't necessarily need a dual-RJ11 router to connect your DSL lines. Every DSL modem I've ever seen supports bridging the DSL connection to Ethernet, which will allow you to connect it to any Ethernet router. For your setup, you would have one DSL connection going directly to the RJ11 port on your router, and the other going to the ISP-supplied DSL modem that you've bridged and plugged into your router's Ethernet WAN port.

Looking at the load balancing features of your router, it looks like it provides very basic load balancing functionality. You would have to specifically define the traffic that goes out a particular WAN connection. If you have multiple computers, you can achieve some basic load balancing by assigning them to a particular WAN connection such that your bandwidth is reasonably well-balanced. If you're looking for load balancing that it more automated, you'll probably have to find another router.

 

[bobdole369]

Load balancing doesn't work this way. Unless your DSL connections come from the same ISP and they specifically support bonding your DSL connections (if you don't know, they don't), your maximum download speed will be 1.5Mb/s. If you have two computers downloading a file, a router that is capable of doing true load balancing can intelligently route the computers over both DSL connections so they can both download at 1.5Mb/s. However, less expensive dual-WAN routers typically don't have very good load balancing capabilities and are only effective for WAN failover.

As for your particular scenario, you don't necessarily need a dual-RJ11 router to connect your DSL lines. Every DSL modem I've ever seen supports bridging the DSL connection to Ethernet, which will allow you to connect it to any Ethernet router. For your setup, you would have one DSL connection going directly to the RJ11 port on your router, and the other going to the ISP-supplied DSL modem that you've bridged and plugged into your router's Ethernet WAN port.

Looking at the load balancing features of your router, it looks like it provides very basic load balancing functionality. You would have to specifically define the traffic that goes out a particular WAN connection. If you have multiple computers, you can achieve some basic load balancing by assigning them to a particular WAN connection such that your bandwidth is reasonably well-balanced. If you're looking for load balancing that it more automated, you'll probably have to find another router.

This is seconded. We used a Cisco 1811 with 2x ethernet WAN ports. The telco supplied netopia 3347's. The Cisco could do fairly advanced shaping and balancing if you are an IOS artist, otherwise it's simple round robin.

My old boss also thought that you could do "50% bandwidth on one, 50% on another" it took a solid month before he understood that this just doesn't work like that.

 

[Emulex]

I have found pfsense 2 outperforms all other dual wan products in a esxi server - for free.

plus remember cisco thinks ping is a good way to handle two static low end connections - that is lame - you need to think higher level like http/https get, dns check - icmp is such low priority you'll have dropped packets and interfaces going up/down all the time. my ancient 6 year old dual-wan $160 router even does http head along with icmp. Very disappointed with cisco's static dual wan support.

obviously if you know how to code with pfsense you can do exotic stuff like https get an image - a 64k image over SSL will easily spot a bad nic someone between new york and california - 20% packet loss can make "CLOUD" workers very very mad (or vpn'ers). a small ping packet is very easy to get lost or pass when a problem exists with a larger packet or a more complex scenario.

i'm talking low end routing here - no ospf/bgp4 - just two low cost providers with some static ip's. for that pfsense is great - there are other open source projects as well if you don't like freebsd - esxi supports promiscuous pass-through which iirc hyper-v does not.

 

[smithers007]

Load balancing doesn't work this way. Unless your DSL connections come from the same ISP and they specifically support bonding your DSL connections (if you don't know, they don't), your maximum download speed will be 1.5Mb/s. If you have two computers downloading a file, a router that is capable of doing true load balancing can intelligently route the computers over both DSL connections so they can both download at 1.5Mb/s. However, less expensive dual-WAN routers typically don't have very good load balancing capabilities and are only effective for WAN failover.

As for your particular scenario, you don't necessarily need a dual-RJ11 router to connect your DSL lines. Every DSL modem I've ever seen supports bridging the DSL connection to Ethernet, which will allow you to connect it to any Ethernet router. For your setup, you would have one DSL connection going directly to the RJ11 port on your router, and the other going to the ISP-supplied DSL modem that you've bridged and plugged into your router's Ethernet WAN port.

Looking at the load balancing features of your router, it looks like it provides very basic load balancing functionality. You would have to specifically define the traffic that goes out a particular WAN connection. If you have multiple computers, you can achieve some basic load balancing by assigning them to a particular WAN connection such that your bandwidth is reasonably well-balanced. If you're looking for load balancing that it more automated, you'll probably have to find another router.

Update:
I just got out my other routher and tested it with DSL1 Line (I don't have DSL2 line yet) and I'm able to take the old DSL router and connect via RJ-45 directly into the RJ-45 connector on the DrayTek. Good news! I'm actually typing this through the other router and through the DrayTek Very cool! So I can use it as I mentioned below. And the DrayTek will load balance according to the percentages I setup. Ok, I have my answer now

The router I have does have great capability for allowing me to adjust the load balancing.

Here is a Demo of the interface of the router I have:
http://www.draytek.com/.upload/Demo/Vigor2820/v3.3.5.2/
("WAN", then "General Setup")
** Under the General Setup, I can setup WAN2 as Ethernet **

It's capable of allowing the user to adjust those types of settings fairly well.

As for your particular scenario, you don't necessarily need a dual-RJ11 router to connect your DSL lines. Every DSL modem I've ever seen supports bridging the DSL connection to Ethernet, which will allow you to connect it to any Ethernet router. For your setup, you would have one DSL connection going directly to the RJ11 port on your router, and the other going to the ISP-supplied DSL modem that you've bridged and plugged into your router's Ethernet WAN port.

If I am understanding this correctly:
(also, the other hardware is a Router, too. I don't have a Modem from this ISP)

• DSL1 Line Plugs into DreyTek Router (RJ-11)

• DSL2 Line Plugs into my 'other' Router (RJ-11)

• Plug in an RJ-45 into 'other' Router and connect it into the RJ-45 Connector on the DrayTek

When you say Bridge the routers, do you mean inside the DrayTek? If you view the URL, there are bridging abilities within the DrayTek. I'm just wondering if connection one into another (router) will work out for me.

There's also this:
http://www.google.com/products/cata...shop&cid=8794295228271937942&sa=X&ei=p79yTp26
RJ-11 to RJ-45 Adapter
This is hypothetical of course, but I'm desperate to answers

 

[smithers007]

Load balancing doesn't work this way. Unless your DSL connections come from the same ISP and they specifically support bonding your DSL connections (if you don't know, they don't), your maximum download speed will be 1.5Mb/s. If you have two computers downloading a file, a router that is capable of doing true load balancing can intelligently route the computers over both DSL connections so they can both download at 1.5Mb/s. However, less expensive dual-WAN routers typically don't have very good load balancing capabilities and are only effective for WAN failover.

As for your particular scenario, you don't necessarily need a dual-RJ11 router to connect your DSL lines. Every DSL modem I've ever seen supports bridging the DSL connection to Ethernet, which will allow you to connect it to any Ethernet router. For your setup, you would have one DSL connection going directly to the RJ11 port on your router, and the other going to the ISP-supplied DSL modem that you've bridged and plugged into your router's Ethernet WAN port.

Looking at the load balancing features of your router, it looks like it provides very basic load balancing functionality. You would have to specifically define the traffic that goes out a particular WAN connection. If you have multiple computers, you can achieve some basic load balancing by assigning them to a particular WAN connection such that your bandwidth is reasonably well-balanced. If you're looking for load balancing that it more automated, you'll probably have to find another router.

I'm aware of this, and I don't know why they don't spend the money out on the box three miles away to just provide me the ability to charge me for a 3Mb connection, but I guess they have their reasons.

I simple want to use 2 lines to load balance on via hardware. I'm just trying to get the right setup/hardware to be able to do this. These two DSL lines will be separate from each other, and I know there's a way to do this, I'm just so confused on the proper way.

 

[freegeeks]

peplink also has multi-wan routers

http://peplink.com/

 

[theevilsharpie]

I simple want to use 2 lines to load balance on via hardware. I'm just trying to get the right setup/hardware to be able to do this. These two DSL lines will be separate from each other, and I know there's a way to do this, I'm just so confused on the proper way.

If you want hardware load balancing, look for routers that support ECMP.

 

[Despoiler]

What you are looking for is circuit bonding not load balancing. Two very different things.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

I don't know who your phone company is, but mine is CenturyLink.

Just because you can get two 1.5Mbps DSL lines, it does NOT mean that you will have that much bandwidth available as the company over sells the service a lot.

If you want to really bond those lines, look at the service offered by http://us.sharedband.com for $25 a month.
I have the service for almost a year, works really well.

The most likely reason that you can only get that speed DSL is that your DSLAM (phone box in town) is only fed by T1 data line, a T1 line can supply a max speed of 1.544 Mbps or 20 voice lines.
Your town might only be fed by half a dozen T1 lines, not fibre. There might not be a lot of bandwidth to share around, so don't be surprised when your total bandwidth does not go up much, or anything at all. This happened to me.

 

[smithers007]

I don't know who your phone company is, but mine is CenturyLink.

Just because you can get two 1.5Mbps DSL lines, it does NOT mean that you will have that much bandwidth available as the company over sells the service a lot.

If you want to really bond those lines, look at the service offered by http://us.sharedband.com for $25 a month.
I have the service for almost a year, works really well.

The most likely reason that you can only get that speed DSL is that your DSLAM (phone box in town) is only fed by T1 data line, a T1 line can supply a max speed of 1.544 Mbps or 20 voice lines.
Your town might only be fed by half a dozen T1 lines, not fibre. There might not be a lot of bandwidth to share around, so don't be surprised when your total bandwidth does not go up much, or anything at all. This happened to me.

I think I might try this, however I am worried about latency with online games. The lady I spoke with said I would be connected to the Chicago data center, and I live in MO. state.

If it works well, I should be fine at that point. I too have CenturyLink, which I hate. I get Fiber next year (maybe) from a new service out here. However no fee pricing and speeds have been sent to us yet.

 

[smithers007]

If you want hardware load balancing, look for routers that support ECMP.

Ok, but then where can I found such a router? On top of that, I still want to keep my WiFi ability within the house.

 

[smithers007]

Hey guys,

I really do appreciate all of the help here. I guess I don't truly understand Load-Balancing like I thought I did. I guess for home use Load-Balancing (if not running a small business from your house?) is quite pointless.

Bonding I understand more now, but Load-Balancing ----- I just don't see how that's useful for me. Could someone break this down for me ?

 

[smithers007]

I spoke with Cisco, here are their "bonding" routers:

http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/solu...s/routers_switches/1900_series_isr/index.html

Under $800, too. debating if this is all worth it now :/

 

[JoeMcJoe]

I think I might try this, however I am worried about latency with online games. The lady I spoke with said I would be connected to the Chicago data center, and I live in MO. state.

If it works well, I should be fine at that point. I too have CenturyLink, which I hate. I get Fiber next year (maybe) from a new service out here. However no fee pricing and speeds have been sent to us yet.

It will add, maybe 4mS to the ping times and usually less. It depends how far you are from their servers.
I connected to the Seattle data centre and their support is really good, the service never went down.

I used two DSL modems and two Linksys WRTG54L routers.

Another option is for you to go to another ISP that will use real bonding, that would've cost me about $200 per month. Using Sharedband and Centurylink costs about $100 per month.

 

[Emulex]

pfsense 2.0 is released now - it takes 5 minutes to set it up to do load balancing. works great in a vmware platform

 

[smithers007]

It will add, maybe 4mS to the ping times and usually less. It depends how far you are from their servers.
I connected to the Seattle data centre and their support is really good, the service never went down.

I used two DSL modems and two Linksys WRTG54L routers.

Another option is for you to go to another ISP that will use real bonding, that would've cost me about $200 per month. Using Sharedband and Centurylink costs about $100 per month.

I'm setup on their service now, getting around 2.8Mb to 3Mb. Latency wise, pretty good! Having four routers sitting on my desk, kinda annoying but I'm loving the speed!

I have noticed some packet loss in LOTRO, staying around at constant .5%'ish. It's not really noticeable but that's lovely UDP for you. Thank you for mentioning these folks to me, this is really nice!

From what I know I won't be getting fiber until next spring, and we still haven't been told prices and speeds. Right now those out in my county that have it are on unlimited caps, wish I was testing that!

Once that's here I'll finish out my contract with the DSL lines and later kill them off. I'm trying to run a business from home so speed is pretty important for me at this time. CenturyLink is the only ISP out here until the fiber comes, so I'm stuck with 1.5Mb, but now 3Mb

Now to plug in a 5th router (shhh, just for my iPhone!) to have 3Mb download for my Netflix! I watch so much stuff on my iPhone before bed, just more enjoyable putting in the ear-plugs and laying down and watching something good) Seems I can't setup a wifi on these routers or it'll mess up the dual linking with them.


Again, thank you!

 

[smithers007]

pfsense 2.0 is released now - it takes 5 minutes to set it up to do load balancing. works great in a vmware platform

I've used/installed vmware many times, I love that software. However is this only load balancing? Doesn't sound like it would give me the bonding ability I now have where my two DSL lines are now a 3Mb line.

Can you provide me some links to the 2.0 info? (I can google it, but having your help in pointing me in the right direction I feel safer)

 

[Despoiler]

Hey guys,

I really do appreciate all of the help here. I guess I don't truly understand Load-Balancing like I thought I did. I guess for home use Load-Balancing (if not running a small business from your house?) is quite pointless.

Bonding I understand more now, but Load-Balancing ----- I just don't see how that's useful for me. Could someone break this down for me ?

Load balancing just means you have 2 resources to pick from to provide some service from. If I need to download a file and I have two 1.5mbit load balanced circuits the file download is assigned to one circuit. While my first download is going I find out I need another download. The load balance looks at both circuits and sees one circuit with a file being downloaded already and one with nothing going on. It assigns the download to the second circuit that has 1.5mbit available. In both cases you will max out your downloads at 1.5mbit. If you get a third file download it will assign it to circuit one. Load balancing is slightly better than a single circuit because you can share the work between two resources. Circuit bonding on the other hand makes your 2 1.5mbit circuits look like it is a 3mbit single circuit. You can download at 3mbit, but everything you download is done on what appears to be one circuit. It is a step above load balancing because of that.

 

[smithers007]

Thanks for breaking down the load balancing, helped my mind more.

today I have had horrible service with Shareband, and am currently working on one DSL line. I have no tolerance for a company that only has tech support in the UK, yet they have sales offices within the states. Every time you have issues (heh, if you 'have' internet that is) you have to put in a ticket and wait for days to get a response.

Still getting UDP packet loss all over the place (with a single line I never got this) and still no help from them. It's just sad.

I was better off with two separate DSL lines. God CenturyLink needs to just burn.