replacing our T1, help me make some network decisions

[novowel]

right now, we pay roughly $300/mo for a full T1. i'm in charge of the networking aspects so, i've been thinking about changing up some things.

a friend of mine, also has a T1 running into his house. we both live with about 75 guys. in addition to his T1, he picked up two comcast 3mb lines. purchased a new router so he can use the T1 and comcast lines in conjunction. all i hear is how sweet everything is 😀

well, I don't want to spend that much. but i'm wondering if two DSL, two cable, or a cable+DSL line would be faster than the T1. i will spend the $400 for the new router so I can use both lines togeher.

thoughts?

 

[echow87]

Hmmm,

is the T1 you currently have is dedicated? How fast do you download at? If your area already have the new faster comcast service. Then getting 2 x cable will be pretty fast. Around 800-900 kbps. Also, for the dual connection router, it does not cost $400, you can get it for less than $300 now.

 

[echow87]

Hmmm,

is the T1 you currently have is dedicated? How fast do you download at? If your area already have the new faster comcast service. Then getting 2 x cable will be pretty fast. Around 800-900 kbps. Also, for the dual connection router, it does not cost $400, you can get it for less than $300 now.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Where are you that you get full T1 for $300? 😕

As far as your question, I'd think that dual Comcast lines at 3mbit down / 256kbit up would be considerably better for typical Internet access. You won't have the same upstream speed, but unless you're running servers with a lot of traffic on your little network, I'd go with the Comcast accounts.

 

[novowel]

Originally posted by: echow87
Hmmm,

is the T1 you currently have is dedicated? How fast do you download at? If your area already have the new faster comcast service. Then getting 2 x cable will be pretty fast. Around 800-900 kbps. Also, for the dual connection router, it does not cost $400, you can get it for less than $300 now.

yes, the T1 is dedicated. the thing is, the line is getting maxed with all these people using it. is that 800-900kbps per line, or for 2x?

which router were you talking about? the router I'm talking about is now made by symantec, but i'd be buying the older model before the ocmpany was bought out. link me? 🙂

 

[novowel]

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn
Where are you that you get full T1 for $300? 😕

As far as your question, I'd think that dual Comcast lines at 3mbit down / 256kbit up would be considerably better for typical Internet access. You won't have the same upstream speed, but unless you're running servers with a lot of traffic on your little network, I'd go with the Comcast accounts.

well, the T1 is $600, but we ended up getting it for $300. bascially a company is running a T1 through our house with plans to sell the bandwidth, but temporarily plans fell through so we still pay $300 and they pick up the rest.

i'm not concerned about upload speeds, most people just download and want to do the typical, check emaill, check sports, MP3s, etc.

my friend suggested a DSL and a cable line. speakeasy + comcast, in case one goes down at least we'll have some kind of redundancy.

 

[Garion]

It's hard to recommend a solution without knowing what you do with your Internet connection.. Is it just browsing, or do you do a lot of uploading / P2P apps? If so, with a lot of people, cable might be more difficult, as you'll QUICKLY max out your upload bandwidth, which impacts downloading and general use. Do you host any web services? e-mail? VPN access? What are your uptime requirements? What's the impact if it goes down for a day or two?

- G

 

[SpeedDemonAaron]

Well, as far as dual-wan routers I see 4 different solutions:

Symantec, Nexland, Xincom, and Hawking.

The Symantec is very expensive (Model 200), like $800 expensive. Then there is the Nexland which can be had on ebay for about $400, very nice router and the same as the more expensive symantec, and better in some people's oppionions. the problem with Nexland though is that they were bought out by Symantec and there is no longer support ont he router. I personally use the Nexland and it is very very very sweet. Next there is the Xincom 502 which just came out this week I believe and because of this it is very hard to find on the internet. The 402 is easy to find but the 502 probably won't show up for a little bit on the vendors websites. You'd probably have to buy this one through the company for $250 I believe. I have no personal experience with this one, but from what I've heard at www.tomshardware.com it should be a good one, not sure though if it is as configurable as the Nexland Pro800Turbo. Then there is the Hawking FR24 which is impossible to find right now because from what I've heard it has been discontinued and Hawking is coming out with a new model right now. I had a Hawking FR24 though and it bit the dust, the thing completely crashed when upgrading the firmware and never booted back up again. The thing was a piece of junk anyways so it was a good excuse to get the Nexland one.

Right now I'm running a Full T1, and a 4.0/384 cable line together through the router and am getting awesome performance. My biggest goal was to make sure that even if people were downloading files or saturating the bandwidth that there would always be room to spare so that the internet from page to page would always seem fast.

The problem that I've found though with a cable line though is that when the upload is completely saturated the download because really really slow, and latent. I've been thinking about possibly switching out the cable line and T1 for a dual 3.0/768 ADSL connection. This would give me about the same download bandwidth total 6mb vs 5.5 mb, and the upload would be about the same 1536k vs 1920k. The nice thing to would be that if someone got stuck on one of the DSL lines the possiblity won't be as high that the connection would be slow because the upload is higher. I also think that the DSL does a better job of handling more people cause even if the upload is maxed out at 85K/s or about there I should still be able to download at about 340K/s.

What do you guys think about doing the dual ADSL lines which would run about $280 a month total vs. the T1 + cable which runs me $657 a month?

 

[novowel]

Originally posted by: Garion
It's hard to recommend a solution without knowing what you do with your Internet connection.. Is it just browsing, or do you do a lot of uploading / P2P apps? If so, with a lot of people, cable might be more difficult, as you'll QUICKLY max out your upload bandwidth, which impacts downloading and general use. Do you host any web services? e-mail? VPN access? What are your uptime requirements? What's the impact if it goes down for a day or two?

- G

mostly browsing and downloading. little to no uploading. the connection is meant for general internet use. no services are hosted. uptime...well, i'd like to be up 100%. of course thats not a reality. however, with the t1 we have not had any internet outtages. if it goes down for a day or two people get pissed. 75 guys coming to me complaining. but its not like we're running a ecommerce site that needs to be up 24/7

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'd consider the fastest service, which is typically cable. My Comcast account is 3000/256, so with two you'd have a maximum bandwidth of 6mbits down, which should be decent. If there is little uploading, the slower upload speed shouldn't be a factor.

You would have a bit better reliability with two different services, but my Comcast has been down about 10 days total in the last three years. Once it was a big storm that took out lots of lines, and the other time it was a defective gateway on a pole that kept dying when it got hot outside. Since DSL is typically significantly lower bandwidth for the same money, and you have 75 people, I'd go for the maximum bandwidth solution.

 

[novowel]

in order to uses the two lines i will need to buy a router like speedemon has mentioned. i can limit uploads with that i believe, then the downstream souldnt ever be affected, correct?

im going to look into DSL too and see what i can come up with

 

[Boscoh]

In my experience, DSL is usually more reliable than Cable provided you pick a good ISP. You should have a choice which ISP you want with DSL, if you get a good one, you should have very little downtime. I had a DSL line for 2 years before I switched to cable (telco jacked the DSL price up...idiots) and it was down less than one of the T-1 lines we have at work. I think in two years it was down for half a day total. If you choose a good ISP you'll also have someone to tell you what the problem is when you call if your connection ever does go down, unless you get a business class cable account (unless comcast is different than Time Warner) then you'll just get someone who will tell you "yes we have an outage, I cant tell you when it will be fixed but we are working on it." However, DSL is usually going to be more expensive than cable. You'll have to weigh it out. Cable is a lot more reliable now than it was 2 or 3 years ago, but theres still times when mine goes out for a few days at a time (this happens about two-four times a year) and the same is true with some people I work with. I've also noticed that cable is a lot more prone to having a dirty line than DSL is. I'd blame this on the fact that most of the cable installers I've dealt with from Time Warner were stupid and lazy, except two and we stole one of them to come work for us. If you get cable, you need to make sure that you tell that installer to run a dedicated line from the pole to the modem and watch him do it, dont let him pipe that line from a splitter on your house. If that signal goes through 2 or 3 splitters (which is very common for them to do) your SNR will be crap and you'll get packet loss and disconnects. If you get two cable modem connections, get two seperate lines from the pole to the cable modem. If you have to pay extra for it (I've never had to) then do it.

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn
I'd consider the fastest service, which is typically cable. My Comcast account is 3000/256, so with two you'd have a maximum bandwidth of 6mbits down, which should be decent. If there is little uploading, the slower upload speed shouldn't be a factor.

You would have a bit better reliability with two different services, but my Comcast has been down about 10 days total in the last three years. Once it was a big storm that took out lots of lines, and the other time it was a defective gateway on a pole that kept dying when it got hot outside. Since DSL is typically significantly lower bandwidth for the same money, and you have 75 people, I'd go for the maximum bandwidth solution.

Sorry, but I wouldnt consider comcast anywhere near the fastest. I have Cablesvisions OOL and even know their cfable TV sucks, my 8+ MB down and 1mb up can't be beat!
I have been down less then 5 days in 3 years and that includes the big blackout of a few months ago.

 

[SpeedDemonAaron]

You actually can't limit uploads with the dual-wan router.... I'm not sure how you would do this. Any suggestions from anyone?

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn I'd consider the fastest service, which is typically cable. My Comcast account is 3000/256, so with two you'd have a maximum bandwidth of 6mbits down, which should be decent. If there is little uploading, the slower upload speed shouldn't be a factor. You would have a bit better reliability with two different services, but my Comcast has been down about 10 days total in the last three years. Once it was a big storm that took out lots of lines, and the other time it was a defective gateway on a pole that kept dying when it got hot outside. Since DSL is typically significantly lower bandwidth for the same money, and you have 75 people, I'd go for the maximum bandwidth solution.

Sorry, but I wouldnt consider comcast anywhere near the fastest. I have Cablesvisions OOL and even know their cfable TV sucks, my 8+ MB down and 1mb up can't be beat! I have been down less then 5 days in 3 years and that includes the big blackout of a few months ago.

You suffer from selective comprehension.

I said that cable was typically faster than DSL, and I don't see anything in your post that makes me thing I was wrong. I then went on to explain what I have with cable, and I never claimed that mine was the fastest service available, I was just offering an example of cable service.

Perhaps we can all get back to the discussion in hand now that you've thumped your chest and shown us all how important and lucky you are.

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: gunrunnerjohn I'd consider the fastest service, which is typically cable. My Comcast account is 3000/256, so with two you'd have a maximum bandwidth of 6mbits down, which should be decent. If there is little uploading, the slower upload speed shouldn't be a factor. You would have a bit better reliability with two different services, but my Comcast has been down about 10 days total in the last three years. Once it was a big storm that took out lots of lines, and the other time it was a defective gateway on a pole that kept dying when it got hot outside. Since DSL is typically significantly lower bandwidth for the same money, and you have 75 people, I'd go for the maximum bandwidth solution.

Sorry, but I wouldnt consider comcast anywhere near the fastest. I have Cablesvisions OOL and even know their cfable TV sucks, my 8+ MB down and 1mb up can't be beat! I have been down less then 5 days in 3 years and that includes the big blackout of a few months ago.

You suffer from selective comprehension.

I said that cable was typically faster than DSL, and I don't see anything in your post that makes me thing I was wrong. I then went on to explain what I have with cable, and I never claimed that mine was the fastest service available, I was just offering an example of cable service.

Perhaps we can all get back to the discussion in hand now that you've thumped your chest and shown us all how important and lucky you are.

Chest wasn't inflated because I do not own OOL, just pay for their service. You are correct in that Cable is usually faster then DSL. I did misread your post as I thought it said comcast was the fastest, but appears that is not what u meant. My apologies.

Either way, if you do not require the response time to fix a T1, then going to dual ADSL, Cable + DSL would be a god choice.
I would reco possibly using 2 different backbones (like ADSL + cable) in caswe 1 goes down, you still have the other to fall back on.

Check out this Router:
Snapgear SME 575 as it should do what you are looking for and I believe that model is under $800.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: SpeedDemonAaron
You actually can't limit uploads with the dual-wan router.... I'm not sure how you would do this. Any suggestions from anyone?

astaro.com


2)aggregation
3)load balacing
4)traffic shaping
5)free for non-commercial use

 

[dmcowen674]

You should be able to get your DSL line reprovisioned for 3 meg down (or more since all DSL Modems can do a minimum of 6 meg down, most 8) and the full 1 Meg Upload speed. It should still be cheaper than the T1 service.

 

[mcveigh]

am I the only one who thinks there is a LOT of pr0n at this house??


oh get the snapgear.

 

[wetcat007]

T3 time! lol

 

[novowel]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: SpeedDemonAaron
You actually can't limit uploads with the dual-wan router.... I'm not sure how you would do this. Any suggestions from anyone?

astaro.com


2)aggregation
3)load balacing
4)traffic shaping
5)free for non-commercial use

how does this work exactly? I load the software on a machine..? then where do I place the machine? i'm confused 😱

 

[wallsfd949]

Just saw that Linksys has an RV082 dual WAN router for <$300. I'm kinda pissed with my BefSx41 right now, but the RV082 looked like it would fit the bill for what you are doing.

 

[elTaco]

Originally posted by: novowel

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: SpeedDemonAaron
You actually can't limit uploads with the dual-wan router.... I'm not sure how you would do this. Any suggestions from anyone?

astaro.com


2)aggregation
3)load balacing
4)traffic shaping
5)free for non-commercial use

how does this work exactly? I load the software on a machine..? then where do I place the machine? i'm confused 😱

It is a linux distribution that has been modified for easy web-based configuration. Think of it as a linksys router except you are using a pc as the router. Installation is easy. YOu just download the image, burn it ,and stick it in a computer that you can erase. IT will guide you on how to install it. then you configure one of the NICs on a working pc and access it for configuration. the best part is the traffic shaping. Just set your connection maximum in Mb/s, and then create a rule telling it to only use xxxKbits/s of that for kazaa's ports etc....

I f I remember, a 1Ghz pc can easily run it and get a thoroughput of 655Mbps with SPI and everything else on...basically, a 486 should be fine for a DSL or cable line.

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: elTaco

Originally posted by: novowel

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: SpeedDemonAaron
You actually can't limit uploads with the dual-wan router.... I'm not sure how you would do this. Any suggestions from anyone?

astaro.com


2)aggregation
3)load balacing
4)traffic shaping
5)free for non-commercial use

how does this work exactly? I load the software on a machine..? then where do I place the machine? i'm confused 😱

It is a linux distribution that has been modified for easy web-based configuration. Think of it as a linksys router except you are using a pc as the router. Installation is easy. YOu just download the image, burn it ,and stick it in a computer that you can erase. IT will guide you on how to install it. then you configure one of the NICs on a working pc and access it for configuration. the best part is the traffic shaping. Just set your connection maximum in Mb/s, and then create a rule telling it to only use xxxKbits/s of that for kazaa's ports etc....

I f I remember, a 1Ghz pc can easily run it and get a thoroughput of 655Mbps with SPI and everything else on...basically, a 486 should be fine for a DSL or cable line.

Great, the guy doesn't even know what it is, so he is supposed to secure it in a live environment. I luv all these guys proposing using Linux Distros to people who have no clue as to what a firewall does, how it works, how to conifg it and how to secure it. Brilliant advice. Let them think they are secure becuase they installed their own firewall software, except a firewall is only as good as it's configuration!

 

[novowel]

Originally posted by: mboy

Originally posted by: elTaco
Great, the guy doesn't even know what it is, so he is supposed to secure it in a live environment. I luv all these guys proposing using Linux Distros to people who have no clue as to what a firewall does, how it works, how to conifg it and how to secure it. Brilliant advice. Let them think they are secure becuase they installed their own firewall software, except a firewall is only as good as it's configuration!

i'm sorry, i wasn't born omniscient. the line does not even need to be secure. i'm not setting up a corporate network where it does need to be secure. just 75 guys who want to use the internet, and need to be restricted.