One place. Two Internet Connections.

[Cattykit]

Situation:
My girlfriend moved into my place. With her came her ADSL internet connection and I have cable internet connection.

Goal: I'd like to setup a homenetwork and share a printer over network.

My currnet setup:
PC - Router - Cable modem (printer is connected to the router with ethernet cable) - interent.

My girlfriend's current setup:
PC- Router which has build in ADSL modem - internet.

Simply connecting two routers with ethernet cable doesn't work and I'm lost. What should I do?

 

[Emulex]

cancel the service and pay less?

buy an old xincom or edimax dual wan router ($150 originally)

 

[RebateMonger]

As Emulex suggests, keep the service that best meets your needs and cancel the other one. Having two Internet connections makes things more complicated and doesn't help you attain your goal of a unified network.

Once you've whittled it down to a single Internet connection, you can start with one of the guides on home networking:

Get Started with Home Networking:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/getstarted/default.mspx

The basics for such a network include:
1) A modem (cable or DSL)
2) A router (sometimes built into the modem)
3) A switch (sometimes built into the router or the modem/router)

It all starts with the modem connected to the Internet and all your PCs (and printers) connected to the switch. The switch is basically a multi-port outlet for the network so multiple PCs or printers can connect to each other and to the Internet.

 

[Emulex]

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-XC-DPG502-B...dZViewItemQQptZPCC_Modems?hash=item588347f3cf

I use that at work with a 3.0mbps bonded dual t-1 (wan1) and 22/2 (comcast business) on wan2

I set SSL and servers to wan1, ftp to wan2, some users to wan1 port 80, rest to port 80 on wan2 .

Now remember bandwidth is not aggregate and you kept ip hashing - so other than bittorrent or a download manager that connects more than once - you will not see a combined bandwidth of the two.

you will NOT see a combined bandwidth to one PC unless you are P2P'ing or have aligned services.

You will not get the combined bandwidth of both lines automagically like you might think.

Kapish? you will get redundancy - if http get or ping or router down - the device will auto-switch to the other until the service is restored.

edimax makes these now for more $$ but you can pick these units up cheap either way. very powerful for the $$.

You can bind SMTP to a wan port, bind services to a want port, firewall, NAT based on WAN1 or WAN2 or both - so if you open up VNC/RDP on wan1/2 and one wan goes down or is flakey - you could down the wan by logging into the other wan.

the http mode is cool - take a website that is highly available put that in - if it fails 5 times - AND ping it (for comcast wan2 i ping www.comcast.com and http check it). if it gets too many fails - it will down the interface and reroute to wan1.

I have WAN1 going to a different route since its on a different network AS but the same thing.

Say you are doing alot of SSL or VPN - it is VERY intolerant of 20% packet loss. would drive you nutz. It could detect and down that interface or warn you.

Uptime : about 5 years
CON: Outgrown it with 50+ machines - but it works so good
CON: won't do 100 megabit - but i don't have that much aggregate bandwidth to the net
SUPER CON: power brick requires pure sine wave output or replacement with better power brick.

Geek: you can do this with a linksys dd-wrt or *nix router

EDImax sells the same hardware and then some- for more money but they've kept up (aka still in business) the firmware and have added higher performance modules. Their price point retail is 150-200% of xincom. for $150 (that is new price) it was hard to beat the power of the X502

 

[Emulex]

http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_list.php?pl1_id=3&pl2_id=

check out their swag. i've talked to the pbm there - they know their low end 2 wan product is the same thing as xincom but they are in business still they have up to 16 wan models iirc. would be cool as heck to have dual-t1 (cbeyond voip) and 4 comcast 22meg lines for "fun "

$1295 for dual t-1 with 16 lines (or 15?) 7000 minutes - highly available connection
2 comcast 50 meg business with 1 ip each ($149) (etherchannel more expensive)
2 vdsl uverse/dsl for business $50/month

Having a crapton of bandwidth and multiple routes for less than $2K a month plus some free QAM cable - awesome.