Shotgun Modems: How?

[Chobits]

I sure hope some of you remember what this is...Basically I remember them during the Quake 2 era mainly because they doubled your speed which is nice. I'm in an area where everyone around me has DSL but I don't have access to it :\ I have two phone lines and an extra modem (it is identical to my other one) and I was thinking of setting this up.

Is this even possible anymore? Would I need special hardware? Is it not even worth it (I want to improve my anime download speeds and I want slightly less laggy gameplay ) or not? Thanks!

 

[JHeiderman]

Shotgun modems were a US Robitics thing I believe. You had to have a Shotgun compatible modems AND your ISP service had to support it also. Basicaly both modems would work together to give you two 56k download pipes. I don't know though, if it combined to give you a roughly 10k download OR if you would just have two 5k Downloads at once. Either way I'm not sure if a whole lot of ISP's supported it so you would definatley want to find that out before you invested in a new modem or two. I'm sure there are some good FAQ's somewhere on line. Let us know if you find anything good.

- J

 

[Bryan]

Originally posted by: JHeiderman
Shotgun modems were a US Robitics thing I believe. You had to have a Shotgun compatible modems AND your ISP service had to support it also. Basicaly both modems would work together to give you two 56k download pipes. I don't know though, if it combined to give you a roughly 10k download OR if you would just have two 5k Downloads at once. Either way I'm not sure if a whole lot of ISP's supported it so you would definatley want to find that out before you invested in a new modem or two. I'm sure there are some good FAQ's somewhere on line. Let us know if you find anything good. - J

Actually, they were a Diamond thing, weren't they?

 

[JHeiderman]

HOLD THE PHONE! Check out the link below.. looks like it may not be that bad...

HERE

Definately check with your ISP to see if they support it but it may be something you can use already...

(Yes, a Diamond thing, sorry about that!)

- J

 

[Viper GTS]

Windows actually supports bonding two streams. "Shotgunning" was Diamond's solution, but Windows 97 and later have the ability to use two streams as one. 95 supports it via an update to DUN, I believe. IIRC it's in the dialup properties, but it's been ages since I've looked at it.

Typically you had to pay the ISP extra for the service.

Also keep in mind it only helps throughput, not latency. If anything latency could be worse.

More info

Viper GTS

 

[stevewm]

Windows 98 and up all support multi-link PPP (MLPPP). Windows 95 does with a DUN update. MLPPP is the standard for multiple modems. "Shotgun" modems from Diamond actually used propritary technology. Your ISP had to have ShotGun capable hardware. Not many did so the tech just died out.

Practically all ISPs have MLPPP capability, many just don't use it. Those that do offer it will typically charge a fee for its use.

To do this you need 2 phone lines and 2 modems. The modem speeds do not have to be matched and they do not have to be the same brand. You can use a 56k and a 14.4k modem if you wanted to. If you look at the connection properties for your ISP DUN connection there will be a MultiLink tab, goto this can you can select which modems to use. If you select more than 1 modem MultiLink will be enabled.

When you dial out both modems will dial at once. When they both finish handshaking it will say "Bonding Connections..." for a short period of time and then connect normally.

While both modems are connected you can actually dis-connect and reconnect one of them on the fly! If you want to disconnect one of the modems just double click on the DUN status icon in the system tray, highlight the modem you want to disconnect and click Disconnect. That modem will d/c and the other will be unaffected. If you want to re-connect the modem just highlight it and click Connect.

While you can technically use as many modems as you want most ISPs have a limit of 2.

When I had a multi-modem setup I got around 12KB/sec downloads. Both Lucent 56k winmodems connected at a stable and fast 52,000

 

[Chobits]

I thought i could improve my ping times.

For some reason whenever I play ONLY counterstrike the packet loss (I have that thing open so I can see) and the choke always are at like 13ish and it is laggy and I cannot do much basically. I always disconnect after a few minutes of service at best and when I lag i stop for like 5 minutes and then the people disspear and i'm stuck in my current "bob" animation.

But this doesn't happen with WC3 or Aoe2 which pisses me off

 

[Harabecw]

what about cable? is that an option there?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Windows actually supports bonding two streams. "Shotgunning" was Diamond's solution, but Windows 97 and later have the ability to use two streams as one. 95 supports it via an update to DUN, I believe. IIRC it's in the dialup properties, but it's been ages since I've looked at it.

Typically you had to pay the ISP extra for the service.

Also keep in mind it only helps throughput, not latency. If anything latency could be worse.

More info

Viper GTS

Windows 97???

 

[LED]

1st off check and make sure your ISP supports 56KFlex or V90...the OS of 98SE or above will strap/bond Modems but if your ISP won't then you're outta luck...most charge extra for such a service.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
Windows actually supports bonding two streams. "Shotgunning" was Diamond's solution, but Windows 97 and later have the ability to use two streams as one. 95 supports it via an update to DUN, I believe. IIRC it's in the dialup properties, but it's been ages since I've looked at it.

Typically you had to pay the ISP extra for the service.

Also keep in mind it only helps throughput, not latency. If anything latency could be worse.

More info

Viper GTS

Windows 97???

Actually, Windows 95 OSR2 (with all of the networking hotfixes installed) also supported Multi-link PPP. Maybe that's what he meant by "Windows 97".

 

[JHeiderman]

I think ViperGTS was just aiming for the 8 in 98 and missed it and got a 7 instead...

Lots of good info here though! Almost makes two modems dialed up an once a very respectable alternative to broadband if you can't get it in your area.

- J

 

[Chobits]

Originally posted by: Harabecw
what about cable? is that an option there?

Cable is by Adelphia at something like 54-56 dollars a MONTH. That would be my only option. I could go for 3 months @ 19.99 and then pay regular but when other people are paying 39.99 for DSL and in some instances even less there is just no chance I'm paying that much for Cable

 

[oldfart]

Get the cable. The MLPPP will not help your pings. It will give you more speed, but latency will likely be worse. 2 x phone lines and the extra charge by the ISP will be more than a cable modem.

 

[Chobits]

Originally posted by: oldfart
Get the cable. The MLPPP will not help your pings. It will give you more speed, but latency will likely be worse. 2 x phone lines and the extra charge by the ISP will be more than a cable modem.

Nah, I can have several connections to My isp anyway. I usually surf on one line and my brother will surf on the other line using the same username/password

But 50 dollars is insane...I don't see how that is worth it.

 

[Ardan]

My 1.5Mbps ADSL service is exactly $50/month and it is DEFINITELY worth it. I have had it for 2 years now (cable service for the same price for 5 years before that) and I would die if I had to use dialup again. The speed, stability and low-latency as well as a free phone line outweigh the waiting and additional line of a dialup service. Of course, the cable service could be horribly unreliable and slow with high latency...but I bet it is just fine. I personally would never expect a good broadband service to be priced lower than $40 a month, especially after the huge fallout of DSL companies and some cable companies in the late 90's - 2001.

If you want to go out and find two different hardware modems or one that dual-channels then by all means, go ahead. I concur that it won't help your ping. You can transfer faster but you're still on a dialup connection and if the service has a poor network then that won't help either.

 

[Chobits]

wel lthe other thing is I'm attending UCI as a freshman this fall so getting DSL would be pointles...but that doesn't mean I don't ache for some CS.

And why does this only happen with CS out of curiosity? Even UT works fine