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[milonic]

Hi All,

My first post 

My ISP (Enta) have started to do Bonded ADSL. As we live in a rural area and struggle to get 2Mbps most times, I decided to order it.

The hardware they recommend is a Cisco 1921 - I'd also need a couple of ADSL Modules - this brings the price to over £1000 - bit too much for a broadband router.

However, I'm told that I can connect multiple Netgear DG834's as they have a "Virtual Router" feature.

Anyway, my question is: Does anybody know of any other routers that have a "Virtual Router" feature other than the DG834's?

Or, does anybody know of other broadband routers/modems that can bind multiple DSL lines together?

I have Googled and Googled but I'm all Googled out now and still none the wiser.

Cheers,
Andy

[gbehode]

Cisco 1921 is very similar to 1941 as they both come with 2 * WAN slots where you can use the Cisco EHWIC-VA-DSL-A ADSL card, which is the latest ADSL card that replaces the old HWIC-1ADSL card. So with either 1921 or 1941, you can bundle only 2 ADSL circuits, unless there is a combo ADSL card with multiple ports. I have yet to see one like that.

So the first question, is how many ADSL circuits are you intending to bundle together? If you are intending to bundle more than two, then you need another router.  Cisco 2921 comes with 4 WAN slots but it is more expensive, much bulkier and is as noisy as a jet engine, i.e. not a router you can keep under your desk in the office. On the other hand the 1941 won't make a sound.

There may non-Cisco routers with multiple WAN slots but I don't know any.

[burakkucat]

An interesting topic.

I'm sure there must be other bonding routers available, as well as those from Cisco. I seem to recall reading, some years ago, about the exploits of a rural broadband user who could only achieve ~2 Mbps DS on the line. Eventually the CP/ISP offered to bond two lines, so the EU purchased two DrayTek Vigor 100s (make that two Vigor 120s, today) and a non-Cisco bonding router. I just can't recall what was the latter device! 

Perhaps other Kitizens can help?

[kitz]

Found this review about bonding using both the Netgear DG834v4 and the Linksys WRT54GL routers

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/follow-up-sharedband-review

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/review-sharedband-ADSL-bonding

[asbokid]

Apparently bonding can be at the ATM (or PTM) layer, or at the PPP layer.  ATM bonding requires low-level support from the telco, whereas a competent communications provider can support ppp bonding without the telco's involvement.

The ppp daemon for linux has supported ppp bonding for years. It is called multilink PPP bonding or MLPPP.     There is/was a famously good faq on ppp for Linux written by Bill Unruh which documented it.

Presumably if two modems in ethernet bridge mode are put together, feeding a Linux box via two separate ethernet cards, that would meet all the hardware requirements.

The Tomato firmware build apparently supports MLPPP, too.   It's said to be quite difficult to configure (with issues of different latencies on the lines, etc), so driving the shebang from a Linux box might be easier, at least to begin with.

cheers, a

[milonic]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

At first, I'd like to bond 2 lines but have capacity for 3 possibly even 4 lines - so I'd need hardware to suit.

Noisy fans are not ideal as I sit next to the room where the kit will be installed and the walls are quite thin.

Regards burakkucat's post - the "bonding router" is exactly what I'm looking for but having so much trouble finding anything.

Anyway, from what I can tell, the Sharedband routers - DG834's and Linksys' - are standard kit but use their own custom firmware running VRRP. Now, I can try either vrrpd or Keepalived on a Linux box but I'd like to buy something off the shelf, I'll keep looking and will let you know how I get on.

If anybody thinks of anything, please do let me know.

Cheers,
Andy

[burakkucat]

Will do. 

[VeloComms Ltd]

Hi,

I am not sure of your location but I can confirm that in the UK our company supplies both the NetGear DG834v4 and LinkSys WRT54GL with bonding software for our subscription based service.

Regards

Phil

Velocomms.com

[milonic]

Hi All,

I managed to sort this out in the end and just thought I'd let you know what I ended up doing.

I bought a Billion 7800 modem/router for each line and set them in Pure Bridged Mode. I bought the 7800 because I can tweak SNR values and they have Broadcom chipsets which is good for longer, crappier lines. I know they are overkill and a D384 would do the same but I know these modems are good for our conditions.

Now, the problem was, sourcing a decent bonding router and this turned out to be a real pain in the ass. On the one hand, I could have chosen a Cisco 2901 and an ADSL module for each line, but the retail value of this was over £2000. That's a VERY expensive broadband router.

What I chose in the end was a second hand WRT54GS from ebay for £20.00 - I had no idea until recently that the firmware on this, and many other routers, has been released as open source. Something to do with a software licensing cock-up, and this has opened the floodgates to a raft of hacks and tweaks.

The firmware I chose was Tomato/MLPPP, this firmware uploaded straight into the WRT54 and after a little configs - username, password etc, was up and running.

My only problem is that the ISP doesn't always route the connections through the same router at their end and this delays the second line from bonding. Can take up to an hour sometimes but I'm sure we'll get that sorted.

Anyway, after testing I can confirm that it doubles both up and download speeds quite nicely.

Just hope the above info helps anybody else in the same situation as myself.

Cheers,
Andy

[burakkucat]

Thank you for the very interesting update, Andy. It now may prompt investigations by others. 

[pcourtney]

Hi Andy, 
are you still with Enta ?
How did you get on with the Bonding of the two ADSL's working ?

this is something I need to do for my mum and dad pdq

all the best
Peter