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Working With 2 ISPs For Home Networking?

Posted by timothy on from the you-failover-is-better-than-you-fail dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This is, I think, a simple question — but one which I can't get the answer to. As a typical, but perhaps high-demand home user I would like to use 2 separate ISPs. ADSL is pretty cheap nowadays, and 2 x ADSL seems a better value than one fast one — especially in terms of reliability. If one breaks, at least the other will work. Using an old box as a router/firewall, how can I configure a system to use two completely separate ISPs in a sensible manner? Ideally, I'd like the load of my browsing to be balanced, but at the minimum, I'd want some kind of 'fail-over.' If I leave torrents running over night, I'd like the router to use whichever connection doesn't block the traffic — and preferably for it to reset the errant connection. Ideas?"

11 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Get an older computer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Install linux. Get a software router on it.

    I'd post more but I don't know how to do this, but this is probably what you want.

  2. Point of failure by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ADSL is pretty cheap nowadays, and 2 x ADSL seems a better value than one fast one â" especially in terms of reliability. If one breaks, at least the other will work.

    When your DSL is down, it's likely that your neighbor's DSL is down too. Consider cable + DSL, not cable + cable or DSL + DSL.

    1. Re:Point of failure by mikael_j · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The last mile is expensive. It is almost sure that even with DSL from 2 different providers if one fails so does the other.

      In my experience from working for ADSL ISPs in Sweden only very rarely is an actual outage caused by the "last mile", with newly installed DSL it is not unusual for people living fram from the DSLAM to have problems with unstable sync but this is generally easily adjusted.

      So with two different phone lines connected to two different DSLAMS belonging to two different ISPs using two different backbones you'd actually have pretty good redundancy as far as failures from the ISPs side.

      /Mikael

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    2. Re:Point of failure by mikkelm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's because you're in Sweden, and the infrastructure there, especially urban infrastructure, is typically much less vulnerable than here in the southeastern US, for example. We frequently have last mile outages due to storms, flooding and lightning, and when a tree hits a phone mast, you lose your DSL, no matter how many different providers you have.

      It all depends on the local conditions, so suggesting separate last-mine access technologies as a way to optimise your redundancy is not such a bad idea.

    3. Re:Point of failure by farnsaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the main reason is that Japan has a total area of about 375,000 sq km.

      https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html

      The USA has about 9,200,000 sq km, or about 30 times the area. Now we (the USA) have covered this out to supply power, telephone, cable tv, and internet but have not been able to cover every single residence with redundancy on these services.

      Japan is slightly smaller than California, a large state, but still only one of 50.

      --
      "Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their fingers" (non-mutant, non-mutilatated, human computer scientists)
    4. Re:Point of failure by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Insightful

      He was comparing rural Japan to a major conurbation in the US. In other words the geographic factors (or excuses) you gave are the other way round.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. Re:DSL+Cable by HalAtWork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    probably "Roll your own" solutions, but as most of us know, that can provide months and months of aggravation!

    Ah, but also fun and learning. "You must be new here" ;)

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  4. i have a few hints by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful
    1) Don't steal movies, porn or music with your connection, this way you will save lots of bandwith for browsing.

    2) Don't try to setup 2 isp's yourself, you are too stupid to find the Linux Advanced Routing Mini HOWTO, and you will have a lot of trouble with the two connections if you don't have a clue about networking.

  5. Re:DSL+Cable by Bandman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's really getting into the enterprise level of redundancy. Rare indeed would be the home network which would necessitate two power companies. I could see a generator for auxiliary power, but I can think of a lot of things higher in priority than my home network.

    --
    Check out my sysadmin blog!
  6. From the "I am not giving a useful answer dept" by fliptout · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great, so you googled some shit. Maybe he wants to get some people's experiences with them? What is good or bad?

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
  7. Re:From the "I don't use google" Department. by kannibal_klown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    God, not another person saying this.

    Slashdot articles aren't just posted for the question, but for the discussion. Yes, anyone can find an answer to anything they want with Google+Wikipedia+etc.

    The point here is that maybe someone will take an interest in it that never thought of it before or cared enough to dig around Google.

    Obviously from the author's point of view, multiple viewpoints by the readers would be helpful. However from the Slashdot mods (and community in general) it's an interesting enough topic to read on their own.